International Business Machines Corporation

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Liang Li

Jeffrey Haskell Derby

Ken Van Vu

Andrew McRae

Willibald A Doeringer

Haldon J Sandick

Hugh Nhan

Thanh Trung Dao

Marcia Lambert Peters

John E Drake, Jr

Harold D Dykeman

Douglas H Dykeman

In one embodiment, a super class that contains a plurality of matching rules is generated. The matching rules of the super class are converted into a hierarchical arrangement of lookup tables and equivalence sets, the hierarchical arrangement having a plurality of levels including a first level and a final level. A final equivalence set is associated with the final level. The lookup tables and final equivalence set are then used to generate a results table that indicates a network packet is associated with a particular class.

Method for classifying packets using multi-class structures

A technique for classifying a packet in a deterministic number of lookup operations. The technique builds a single 'super class' that contains the match criteria for all the rules associated with packet classification. The 'super class' is then compiled to produce a series of lookup tables and equivalence sets, including a final lookup table and equivalence set. The final equivalence set is then &#x201c;post-processed&#x201d; to associate the entries in the final lookup table with a particular result.

A system for interconnecting widely separated local area networks (LANs) by means of a wide area network (WAN) utilizes network level facilities to establish a connection through the wide area network and to create connection table entries at the WAN access point which allow subsequent data frames to be transmitted through the wide area network without such network level operations. More particularly, the various LANs are combined into search groups, represented by address prefixes, to which LAN-initiated connection requests can be broadcast and which can respond so as to establish the data path connections. This system has the connection flexibility of a prior art router and, at the same time, the low overhead of a prior art bridge.

Methods and apparatus for interconnecting local area networks with wide

Access agents in nodes at the LAN/WAN interface are formed into a group of access agents so that the access agents may be managed by the WAN as a group. The group must maintain group operation integrity in that if communications between agents in the group are broken, the access agents will coalesce into subgroups and continue performing communication jobs as a group activity. Each of the access agents contains a finite state machine to perform the tasks of group formation and maintenance. The formation of interconnected access agents into a group is accomplished by one access agent being identified as a group leader. All other access agents communicating with the group leader within the LAN may then join the group. The maintenance of group activity integrity is accomplished by detecting a break in group communication integrity and thereafter reforming the group into multiple smaller groups. The maintenance of group operation integrity also includes the merger of small groups into a large group when a bridge is added between LAN segments.

Forming and maintaining access groups at the lan/wan interface

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Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America

Liang Li