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:
Jan. 13, 2004
Filed:
Jul. 30, 1999
Lakhinder Walia, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Sanjay Jain, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Riverstone Networks, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and a method for managing forwarding table lookups and updates involve maintaining a first forwarding table in a first memory and a second forwarding table in a second memory, and then utilizing the first forwarding table to forward packets while the second forwarding table is updated with current route entries. The second forwarding table is updated in the background and therefore conventional CPU speeds do not cause performance problems. Once the second forwarding table is completely updated, a forwarding table pointer is switched and the second forwarding table is utilized to forward packets while the first forwarding table is updated. Because the second forwarding table has been completely updated in the background, switching the forwarding table pointer causes newly arriving packets to be forwarded according to a forwarding table that is free of inconsistencies.