SID allocation

A method comprising:

• providing a plurality of client nodes executing on a computer system, the plurality of client nodes implementing a plurality of network protocols;
• implementing, on the computer system, a dataplane providing routing of data among the plurality of client nodes and an external network coupled to the computer system;
• receiving, by a segment identifier (SID) manager executing on the computer systems, requests for SIDs from the plurality of client nodes;
• and
• for each client node of the plurality of client nodes, allocating, by the SID manager, a block of multiple SIDs to the each client node in response to a requests of the requests received from the each client node, the multiple SIDs being globally unique among all SIDs allocated to the plurality of client nodes.

A system comprising:

• a computing device including one or more processing devices and one or more memory devices operably coupled to the one or more processing devices storing executable code that, when executed by the one or more processing devices, causes the one or more processing devices to:
• receive, over a network, a block of segment identifiers (SIDs) from a SID manager, the block of SIDs including at least 100 SIDs and being globally unique among clients of the SID manager;
• and
• (a) associating a context mapping with each SID of the block of SIDs independent from the SID manager, the context mapping for each SID including both each SID and a forwarding behavior.