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AssigneeAlcatel Internetworking (PE), Inc.
InventorsJayasenan Sundara Ganesh, Greg W. Davis, Parmajeet Singh, Timothy Scott Michels, James E. Cathey
Estimating the term…
A switching device for forwarding network traffic to a desired destination on a network, such as a telephone or computer network. The switching device includes multiple ports and uses a lookup table to determine which port to forward network traffic over. The lookup table includes network addresses that are maintained in ascending or descending order. The lookup table also includes network address that differ in length. Fictitious network addresses may also be added to the lookup table to expedite searches in the lookup table. The fictitious network addresses are used in conjunction with a comparison field stored in the lookup table. The comparison field allows network addresses and collapsed network addresses (which represent groups of network addresses) to be stored within the same table. The collapsed network addresses allows for a reduction of overall lookup table size, thereby increasing the speed while reducing the cost of the switching device.
A method of forwarding network frames in a network switching device, comprising the steps of:
In a network switching device having two or more ports that receive network frames and that transmit the network frames towards a final destination, and having a search engine coupled to a lookup table for analyzing the network frames by comparing portions thereof to network addresses stored within the lookup table, an improvement including storing a comparison field associated with entries in the lookup table that is applied to the portions of the network frames or the network addresses in the lookup table to determine a number of bits associated with said portions of the network frames or network addresses that are to be compared.
In a network switching device having two or more ports that receive network frames having a destination address embedded therein and that forward the network frames to a final destination on a network, the switching device having a search engine mounted therein that analyzes the network frames by comparing the destination address to network addresses within a lookup table, which is stored within the switching device and coupled to the search engine, an improvement including storing mask bits associated with network addresses within the lookup table, the mask bits being applied by the search engine to at least the destination address of the network frames for comparing the masked destination address to the network addresses or to masked network addresses.
In a network switching device having two or more ports for connecting to different portions of a network and having a search engine for analyzing network frames received from the portions of the network and having a lookup table stored in a memory coupled to the search engine, an improvement wherein the lookup table includes network addresses of differing lengths intermingled throughout the lookup table.
A method of forwarding network frames in a network switching device, comprising the steps of:
A method of forwarding network frames in a network switching device, the method comprising the steps of:
A method of forwarding network frames, the method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.