Juniper Networks, Inc.

Utstarcom, Incorporated

James Washburn

Dennis C Ferguson

Nitin Kumar

Spencer H Greene

Sandeep Bajaj

Scott Mackie

Devereaux C Chen

John W Stewart, Iii

Jeffrey R Zimmer

Philippe Lacroute

Stefan Alexander Dyckerhoff

Rami Rahim

Ina Minei

Yong Luo

Junan Chen

Shivani Aggarwal

Gary Tsztoo

Jayan R Ramankutty

Neal A Schneider

Olaf Möller

Sukhesh Halemane

In general, this disclosure describes a high-level forwarding path description language (FPDL) for describing internal forwarding paths within a network device. The FPDL enables developers to create a template that describes a section of an internal forwarding path within the forwarding plane of a network device. The FPDL provides syntactical elements for specifying the allocation of forwarding path structures as well as enabling the run-time construction of internal forwarding paths to interconnect the forwarding path structures in a manner specific to packet, packet flow, and/or interface properties, for example. In conjunction with late binding techniques, whereby the control plane of the network device provides arguments to template parameters that drive allocation by the packet forwarding engines of forwarding path structures specified by the FPDL, the techniques provide control plane processes a unified interface with which to manage the operation of the packet forwarding engines.

Packet forwarding path programming using a high-level description language

A method may include receiving a packet; determining a set of characteristics of the packet; searching a first tree structure for a rule matching the set of characteristics, where the first tree structure stores a first group of rules, and where each of the first group of rules has a first number and a first type of criteria; searching a second tree structure for the rule matching the set of characteristics, where the second tree structure stores a second group of rules, and where each of the second group of rules has a second number and a second type of criteria, where the number and type of criteria of the second group of rules are different at least in part than the number and type of criteria of the first tree structure; and performing an action if the rule matching the set of characteristics is found.

Rule tree for network device

A method may include receiving a packet; identifying the packet as a multicast packet for sending to a plurality of destination nodes; selecting a first forwarding table or a second forwarding table for sending the packet to each of the plurality of destination nodes, wherein the first forwarding table includes first port information associated with a first destination and second port information associated with a second destination, and wherein the second forwarding table includes third port information associated with the second destination; sending the packet to the first destination using the first port; and sending the packet to the second destination using the second port when the first forwarding table is selected and sending the packet to the second destination using the third port when the second forwarding table is selected.

Multicast load balancing

A first network device and a second network device for forwarding data units are included in a network. The second network device is configured to receive data units from the first network device via an output interface from the first network device. Each of the network devices is further configured to form a first value derived from information pertaining to a received data unit, perform a function on the first value to provide a second value, wherein the function of the first network device is different from the function of the second network device when forwarding a same data unit, select an output interface based on the second value, and forward a received data unit via an interface.

Cascaded load balancing

Filters are selectively applied to packets depending on forwarding equivalence classes (FECs) of the packets. A FEC filter is defined within the network device and qualified by incoming interface information that identifies source sites of the packets. A label distribution protocol (LDP) FEC is configured such that packets of the given FEC are associated with the FEC filter. The FEC identifies a destination site of the packets received by the router and is automatically combined with incoming interface information. In this way, packet flows may be filtered based on FECs of the packets. FEC filters may be further refined to operate at forwarding class granularity. The techniques allow accurate billing of packets traveling between specific source and destination sites regardless of the number of interfaces of the network device the packets utilize. In addition, the filtering can be used to provide anti-spoofing capabilities.

Filtering traffic based on associated forwarding equivalence classes

A data flow rate policer enforces data flow policies for a number of data flows using a probabilistic policy enforcement mechanism. The policer includes a memory that stores the state of each data flow in a compact data structure. Additionally, the policer includes one or more policing engines that implement the actual data flow policies based on information derived from the data structures. The policing engines may be implemented in hardware to increase performance.

High performance probabilistic rate policer

A hierarchical traffic policer may include a first policer configured to pass first packets when a first condition is met. The first policer also may alter selection information within the passed first packets. A second policer may be configured to pass second packets when a second condition is met. The second policer may be further configured to pass all of the passed first packets from the first policer based on the altered selection information within the passed first packets.

Hierarchical policers for enforcing differentiated traffic behavior

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

James Washburn