Optimized programming of forwarding data in network device hardware

A network device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
• receive information associated with a network topology of a network comprising a plurality of network devices, the network topology comprising a first tunnel and a second tunnel, the first tunnel comprising a first plurality of multipath routes, the second tunnel comprising a second plurality of multipath routes;
• based on the received information associated with the network topology of the network, determine that the network device is an egress of the first tunnel that is configured to remove encapsulation data, the network device is an egress of the second tunnel that is configured to remove encapsulation data, and the egress of the first tunnel at the network device and the egress of the second tunnel at the network device share a next hop from the network device;
• and
• based on the determination, program a set of hardware resources of the network device to:
• store a set of next hop operations for the next hop from the network device,
• forward a first incoming packet through the egress of the first tunnel to the next hop based on the stored set of next hop operations, and
• forward a second incoming packet through the egress of the second tunnel to the next hop based on the same stored set of next hop operations.

A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing a program executable by at least one processing unit of a network device, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

• receiving information associated with a network topology of a network comprising a plurality of network devices, the network topology comprising a first tunnel and a second tunnel, the first tunnel comprising a first plurality of multipath routes, the second tunnel comprising a second plurality of multipath routes;
• based on the received information associated with the network topology of the network, determining that the network device is an egress of the first tunnel that is configured to remove encapsulation data, the network device is an egress of the second tunnel that is configured to remove encapsulation data, and the egress of the first tunnel at the network device and the egress of the second tunnel at the network device share a next hop from the network device;
• and
• based on the determination, programming a set of hardware resources of the network device to:
• store a set of next hop operations for the next hop from the network device,
• forward a first incoming packet through the egress of the first tunnel to the next hop based on the stored set of next hop operations, and
• forward a second incoming packet through the egress of the second tunnel to the next hop based on the same stored set of next hop operations.