Termination of a Pseudowires on Multiple Line Cards

An apparatus, comprising:

• a plurality of line cards, including a plurality of pseudowire terminating line cards configured for terminating a same pseudowire, and an ingress line card;
• wherein the ingress line card is configured to receive a first packet from a source external to the apparatus, to determine a particular pseudowire terminating line card of the plurality of pseudowire terminating line cards, and to forward the first packet to the particular pseudowire terminating line card;
• and
• wherein each of the plurality of pseudowire terminating line cards is configured to send a pseudowire packet, encapsulating the first packet, from the apparatus.

A method, comprising:

• receiving, on an ingress line card of a packet switching device, a packet from a source external to the packet switching device;
• performing, by the packet switching device, a first lookup operation based on the packet to identify a particular pseudowire;
• performing, by the packet switching device, a second lookup operation based on the particular pseudowire in identifying forwarding information for the pseudowire packet;
• encapsulating, by the packet switching device, the packet in a pseudowire packet;
• and
• sending, by a particular pseudowire terminating line card of the packet switching device, the pseudowire packet from the packet switching device.

A method, comprising:

• configuring, by a packet switching device, each of two or more of pseudowire terminating line cards in the packet switching device to include terminating one or more pseudowires;
• wherein said terminating the pseudowire includes, for a pseudowire packet received on the pseudowire by one of said two or more pseudowire terminating line cards:
• determining, based on one or more fields of a first packet encapsulated in said received pseudowire packet, to forward the first packet to a different line card of the packet switching device;
• and
• forwarding the first packet to the different line card.