Method and apparatus for switching communications traffic in a communications network

Abstract

In current hardware forwarding architectures, in which subscriber profiles are distributed across multiple cards in the network, lack of subscriber knowledge leads to loss of bandwidth on fabric links connecting multiple cards in a chassis, loss of device processing cycles, and loss of quality of service knowledge because the traffic is not classified. An example embodiment of the present invention employs a subscriber-aware switch programmed with a subscriber table that maps subscriber traffic to an 'anchor' line card with the subscriber's profile. The subscriber table allows for traffic to reach the anchor line card directly, avoiding unnecessary hops and loss of traffic information. As a result, line card, fabric, and other resources are used efficiently, thereby enabling a gateway or other network node to support high traffic rate (e.g., 100 Gbps) network models.