Nokia Corporation

Vijay K Chander

Atul Mahamuni

Ramkumar Sankar

Sreeram Parameswara Iyer

Henry Hong-Yi Tzeng

Sachchidanand Vaidya

Ashutosh Mate

A system and method is directed to synchronizing a standby route distributor in a distributed routing platform. A route distributor is configured to operate as an active route distributor. Another route distributor is configured to operate as a standby route distributor. The standby and active route distributor may reside in the same or a different distributed routing platform. A slave route distributor communicates a route to the active route distributor. The active route distributor may update its routing tables with the route. The active route distributor forwards the route to the standby route distributor to enable their routing tables to be substantially synchronized. The standby route distributor distributes the route to the slave route distributors, where the route enables an update to another routing table. In the event of a switchover, the standby route distributor resynchronizes its routing tables and may distribute route information to each slave route distributor.

Method and system for synchronizing a standby route distributor in a distributed routing platform

The present invention relates to a method and system for supporting in a router a plurality of data flows using a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) in which the number of accesses to write to the TCAM is optimized to improve efficiency of updating and subsequent look up. To accommodate the plurality of data flows, the TCAM is partitioned into at least two partitions in which a first portion includes indices having a higher priority and a second portion includes indices having a lower priority. For example, multiple protocol label switching (MPLS) flows and IP-Virtual Private Network (VPN) can be added to the first partition and policy based routing flows can be added to the second partition. During subsequent TCAM look-up of a prefix of an incoming packet the MPLS or IP-VPN flow will subsume any matching policy based routing flow, such as flows classified by an access control list or traffic manager flows.

Selective routing of data flows using a TCAM

A system and method is directed to updating a route table in a distributed routing platform, thereby enabling multiple routing protocols to be executed on different routing modules. A slave route distributor on one routing module is configured to receive a route from a local route table and flow manager. The slave route distributor communicates the route to a master route distributor on another routing module by way of an inter process communications protocol. The master route distributor provides the route to its local route table and flow manager, where a determination is made whether the route is a best route. If the route is a best route, the master route distributor updates its external routing table. The master route distributor also distributes the route to another slave route distributor on yet another routing module, where the route enables an update to a remote routing protocol, and routing table.

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Livermore, CA, United States of America

Vijay K Chander