Arista Networks, Inc.

Mayukh Saubhasik

Sriram Sellappa

Vahab Akbarzadeh

Imtiyaz Mohammad

Trevor Siemens

Emil Maric

Tim Tang

Some embodiments provide techniques for optimized programming of forwarding data in network device hardware. An operating system executing on the network device receives information associated with a network topology of a network(s) to which the network device belongs. Based on this information, the operating system can generate various data structures that facilitate the routing and forwarding of data through the network device. Based on the generated data structures, the operating system may then program hardware resources in the network device in order to implement routing and forwarding operations stored in the data structures. During generation of the data structures, the operating system may perform some operations to optimize the programing of the hardware resources in a manner that reduces the amount of hardware resources that would otherwise be used without such optimizations.

Optimized programming of forwarding data in network device hardware

In general, in one aspect, embodiments relate to a network device for forwarding packets as part of a network comprising an adjacent device connected to the network device via a link. The network device includes a switching system for directing the packets between ports of the network device, wherein a port of the ports is operably connected to the adjacent device via the link, and a switching system manager programmed to: identify a failure of the link, in response to identifying the failure of the link, perform a multi-tiered next hop failover of the switching system based on the failure of the link to obtain an updated switching system that does not forward the packets using the failed link, and forward a portion of the packets using the updated switching system.

Leveraging a hybrid usage of software and hardware to support a multi-tiered nexthop failover to backup nexthop handling

Techniques for operating a network device for sharing resources in a hardware forwarding table. In some embodiments, the network device may generate groups of routes having a common set of next hops; for each group of routes of the generated groups: collect resilient adjacencies associated with routes in the group; assemble pairs of the collected resilient adjacencies; and determine a number of differences between resilient adjacencies in each of the assembled pairs. The network device may further order the assembled pairs based on the number of differences, identify a pair of resilient adjacencies associated with a lowest number of differences; select a resilient adjacency of the identified pair of resilient adjacencies; program one or more routes associated with the selected resilient adjacency, to refer to the other resilient adjacency of the identified pair of resilient adjacencies; and remove an entry associated with the selected resilient adjacency from a forwarding table.

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Richmond, Canada

Mayukh Saubhasik