Network relaying apparatus and network relaying method capable of high-speed flow detection

Abstract

A network relaying apparatus and method for detecting a flow at high speed and performing a variety of control operations including quality-of-service (QoS) control and filtering at high speed. A transfer engine stores the packet received through a network interface, in a packet buffer, and stores the header information in a header RAM. A search engine searches the transfer control information including the transfer destination information and the action information according to the header information, and writes it in the header RAM. The transfer engine produces an output packet based on the information stored in the packet buffer and the header RAM and outputs it to the transfer destination. A switch operates to switch the output packet to the routing processor of the final destination. A flow search table separates the action including the QoS corresponding to the packet source information and the transfer destination information by the input port number and searches for only an entry with a coincident input port number.