US 8,576,841 B2Granted

Hybrid port range encoding

AssigneeJuniper Networks, Inc.

InventorsBalamurugan Ramaraj, Gopi Krishna, Ananda Sathyanarayana, Apurva Mehta, Murtuza Attarwala

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Abstract

In general, techniques are described for encoding port ranges. In one example, a method includes generating an encoded value that represents a specified port range including a first element storing an identifier that identifies a frequently occurring port range stored in an associative data structure of most frequently occurring port ranges, a second element storing an index that represents a dynamically-learned port range specifying at least a part of the specified port range, the dynamically-learned port range represented in a tree-structure of dynamically-learned port ranges and identified by the index, and applying, by a forwarding plane of the computing device, one or more filters associated with the encoded value to a packet that specifies a port included in the specified port range.

Claims22

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

generating, by a computing device, an encoded value that represents a specified port range comprising:
a first element storing an identifier that identifies a frequently occurring port range stored in an associative data structure of most frequently occurring port ranges,
a second element storing an index that represents a dynamically-learned port range specifying at least a part of the specified port range, the dynamically-learned port range represented in a tree-structure of dynamically-learned port ranges and identified by the index;
receiving, by the computing device, a packet that indicates a port value;
generating, by the computing device, a query value based at least on the port value;
selecting, by the computing device, one or more filters using a content-addressable data structure that indicates an association between the encoded value and the one or more filters, wherein the encoded value matches the query value;
and
applying, by a forwarding plane of the computing device, the one or more filters associated with the encoded value to the packet that indicates the port.

5 more elements

A network device comprising:

an encoding module that:
generates an encoded value that represents a specified port range comprising:
a first element storing an identifier that identifies a frequently occurring port range stored in an associative data structure of most frequently occurring port ranges,
a second element storing an index that represents a dynamically-learned port range specifying at least a part of the specified port range, the dynamically-learned port range represented in a tree-structure of dynamically-learned port ranges and identified by the index;
a forwarding plane that receives a packet that indicates a port value;
wherein the encoding module:
generates a query value based at least on the port value;
selects one or more filters using a content-addressable data structure that indicates an association between the encoded value and the one or more filters, wherein the encoded value matches the query value;
and
wherein the forwarding plane applies the one or more filters associated with the encoded value to the packet that indicates the port.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.