Method and system for managing traffic in a packet network environment

A method of processing a packet in a network switch, comprising:

• extracting a five-tuple from header information included in the packet;
• extracting a three-tuple from the header information;
• determining a service index based on the three-tuple
• determining whether the packet is associated with an existing connection, based on the five-tuple;
• if so, retrieving a previously assigned flow transmission control block (TCB) pointer associated with the packet;
• if not, assigning a new flow TCB pointer or a client TCB pointer and a server TCB pointer pair to the packet based on the service policy index;
• and
• processing the packet as a function of the previously assigned flow TCB pointer, the new flow TCB pointer, or the client and server TCB pointer pair.

A system for processing packet traffic in a network, comprising:

• a content addressable memory (CAM) for storing a plurality of service policy indexes associated with a plurality of hosts;
• a database for storing a plurality of transmission control blocks (TCBs) grouped according to a plurality of service levels;
• a binding lookup table for extracting header information from a packet and applying the extracted header information to the CAM to retrieve a service policy index corresponding to the packet;
• and
• a packet manager for accessing a transmission control block (TCB) in the database based on the retrieved service policy index and for processing the packet according to information contained in the TCB.

A network switch for processing a packet, comprising:

• a binding lookup table for extracting a five-tuple and a three-tuple from header information included in the packet;
• a first content addressable memory (CAM), responsive to the three-tuple, for outputting a service policy index;
• a second content addressable memory (CAM), responsive to the five-tuple, for outputting a previously assigned flow transmission control block (TCB) pointer;
• means for detecting a CAM miss when applying the five-tuple to the second CAM;
• a flow TCB first-in-first-out (FIFO) memory for storing new flow TCB pointers;
• a client TCB FIFO memory for storing client TCB pointers;
• a server TCB memory for storing server TCB pointers;
• means for retrieving a new flow TCB pointer or a client TCB pointer and a server TCB pointer from the TCB FIFO memories and the server TCB memory, respectively, in the event of a CAM miss and based on the service policy index;
• and
• a database for storing a plurality of client TCBs, server TCBs, and flow TCBs;
• and
• a packet manager for accessing the database and processing the packet as a function of the previously assigned flow TCB pointer, the new flow TCB pointer, or the client and server TCB pointers.