Arista Networks, Inc.

Ramakrishna Shivaramaiah Paduvalli

Xuanran Zong

Sriram Sellappa

Muhammad Khalid Yousuf

Suhas Raghunath Joshi

Hugh Weber Holbrook

Michael Kerby Chen

Francois Labonte

Eswaran Baskaran

Ganesan Venkataraman

Chen Jia Jang

Ashwini Kumar

Denny Hung

Ethan R Vadai

Ramya Edara

Systems and methods for handling resource requests in programming of network device tables. A feature agent of a network device enters a resource request for a resource in a resource table and a resource server returns a response to the request, where the response includes a resource value and a dependency constraint encapsulating validity criteria for utilizing the resource value. When the resource value and dependency constraint are returned, the feature agent writes an entry to a software table, where the software table entry includes the resource and the corresponding dependency constraint. A hardware examines the software table entry and determines whether the dependency constraint has been satisfied. When the dependency constraint has been satisfied, the hardware agent writes an entry corresponding to the software table entry in a hardware table. The network device then processes packets according to the hardware table with the new entry.

Non-blocking distributed resource allocation and resolution across forwarding agents using dependency propagation

Techniques for improving the prefix summarization scale of the longest prefix match (LPM) tables of a network device are provided. In one set of embodiments, these techniques involve deduplicating sub-tries of LPM trie data structures that the network device uses to program LPM entries into the LPM tables. This sub-trie deduplication avoids the creation of duplicate LPM entries in the LPM tables across different virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) instances, thereby increasing the LPM tables' effective capacity.

Prefix summarization scale by deduplicating longest prefix match (LPM) sub-tries

A traffic policy includes policy rules that specify branch actions in their action fields. A branch action specifies another policy rule in the traffic policy. Packet filters generated from the traffic policy represent the traffic policy rules and execution order semantics of the branch rules. The packet filters include resolved actions that are generated by resolving the original actions in the policy rules.

Merging chained actions in traffic policies having branch rules

Systems and methods for maintaining order consistency for asynchronous writes in a network device. In one embodiment, a method includes issuing, by a feature agent of a network device, a plurality of writes to software tables which may be contained in the feature agent. For each write, a corresponding entry is added to a log associated with the software tables, the log entry identifying an order of the write among the plurality of writes. A hardware agent accesses the log to select a next one of the entries in the identified write order and then accesses the software table to retrieve content identified by the selected log entry. The hardware agent then translates the information from the software table to a different form if necessary and writes the information to one or more hardware tables that are indicated by the write associated with the selected log entry.

Write order consistency for asynchronous hardware writes among distributed forwarding and hardware agents with versioned change log

Upgrading packet processing rules in a network device with a replacement set of rules includes generating an edit sequence that represents edit operations to transform an already-installed old set of rules into the replacement rules. The edit sequence is used to identify a subsequence of rules that is common to both the old rules and the replacement rules. A merged list is generated by a combination of the old rules, the replacement rules, and the common subsequence of rules. The merged list is downloaded to the network device, overwriting the old rules in bottom-up fashion to allow packet processing to continue concurrently using the old rules.

Efficient hitless upgrade of packet processing filters

In some implementations, a method is provided. The method includes determining a plurality of field sets and a plurality of field set groups. Each field set of the plurality of field sets comprises one or more packet characteristics. Each field set group of the plurality of field set groups comprises one or more field sets from the plurality of field sets. Each field set group is associated with one or more packet classifier rules. The method also includes determining a set of encoded labels for the plurality of field sets based on a set of rule costs and intersections between field set groups. Each encoded label of the set of encoded labels is associated with a respective field set of the plurality of field sets. The method further includes generating a plurality of entries in a memory based on the set of encoded labels. At least one entry comprises an encoded label from the set of encoded labels and at least a portion of a packet classifier rule.

Optimizing entries in a content addressable memory of a network device

A method and apparatus of a network element that processes network data using a transformed packet classification list in a network element is described. A network element receives a packet classification list and transforms a first set of the plurality of range sets corresponding to a first one of the two or more types of packet characteristics into a first set of range labels. In addition, the network element transforms a second set of the plurality of range sets corresponding to a second one of the two or more types of packet characteristics into a second set of range labels. The network element may create a set of combination labels. The network element further processes network data by performing a first lookup to derive a first combination packet label, performing a second lookup of at least the first combination packet label, and applying a rule resulting from the second lookup to the network data.

System and method of processing packet classification with range sets

Generating entries in a content addressable memory of a network device

Upgrading packet processing rules in a network device with a replacement set of rules includes generating an edit sequence that represents edit operations to transform an already-installed old set of rules into the replacement rules. The edit sequence is used to identify a subsequence of rules that is common to both the old rules and the replacement rules. A merged list is generated by a combination of the old rules, the replacement rules, and the common subsequence of rules. The merged list is downloaded to the network device, overwriting the old rules in bottom-up fashion allowing packet processing to continue concurrently using the old rules.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Ramakrishna Shivaramaiah Paduvalli