The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 15, 1997
Filed:
Oct. 22, 1992
Martin Edward Griesmer, Arlington, MA (US);
Parayath Gopal Krishnakumar, West Newton, MA (US);
David Benson, Acton, MA (US);
Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, MA (US);
Abstract
A forwarding information management system for a bridge or router is disclosed, including a method and apparatus for maintaining forwarding entries within a forwarding table. The forwarding table is allocated into forwarding entries, and the forwarding entries organized into forwarding entry sets. A set of free queues is used to manage the free space segments in the forwarding table that are not allocated into forwarding entries. Each free queue maintains pointers to free space segments of a particular size. A forwarding entry adding process creates a new forwarding entry set including a new forwarding entry, selects a non-empty free queue for free space segments large enough to hold the new forwarding entry set, and writes the new forwarding entry set one of the free space segments. Also included in the system are a forwarding entry deleting process, a learning process providing input for the forwarding entry adding process, and an aging process providing input for the forwarding entry deleting process. In an example embodiment, a hash table is used to locate the forwarding entry sets in the forwarding table. In a preferred embodiment, forwarding entries within the forwarding entry sets are organized into balanced binary trees.