Caching of look-up rules based on flow heuristics to enable high speed look-up

Abstract

In one embodiment, a computer program product includes a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code including computer readable program code configured to initialize an internal look-up table cache provided internally to a switching processor, the internal look-up table cache being configured to store a plurality of look-up entries and being organized into at least three segments: a persistent flows entries segment, a non-persistent flows entries segment, and an access control list (ACL) segment. Each look-up entry relates to a traffic flow which has been or is anticipated to be received by a switching processor configured to access the internal look-up table cache. The computer readable program code is also configured to manage the internal look-up table cache to store entries relating to a particular segment type into a corresponding segment of the internal look-up table cache.