Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.

Extreme Networks, Inc.

Piya Chindaphorn

Kwun-Nan Kevin Lin

Vishal Sinha

Ram Krishnan

Arijit Bhattacharyya

Ramesh Gowthaman

Techniques for virtualizing hardware hash tables in a networking system are provided. In one embodiment, the networking system can maintain a plurality of virtual hash tables corresponding to a plurality of hardware hash tables in the networking system. For each hardware hash table and its corresponding virtual hash table, the networking system can intercept operations directed to the hardware hash table and apply the intercepted operations to the virtual hash table. The networking system can then selectively install and/or uninstall virtual hash table entries to/from the hardware hash table in view of the operations.

Hardware hash table virtualization in multi-packet processor networking systems

A network switch includes a plurality of isolated ports, each associated with a private domain. The switch also includes a network port associated with the private domain. A memory in the switch maintains a hardware-based forwarding table for the private domain. Processing logic in the network switch prevents forwarding of packets between isolated ports within the private domain based at least in part on a privacy level associated with each entry in the hardware-based forwarding table for the private domain.

Customer isolation using a common forwarding database with hardware learning support

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Piya Chindaphorn