Abstract: One embodiment disclosed relates to a method of load balancing between a plurality of routers. A packet is received at a router from a source host to be forward to a destination host. An algorithm is applied at the router to select a gateway for the source host for packets destined to the destination host. An ICMP redirect message is then sent from the router to the source host to reset the gateway of the source host for packets destined to the destination host. An ARP request is received at the plurality of routers from a requesting host from a source IP address in relation to a destination IP address. An algorithm is applied at each router to determine which single router is to respond to the request. The responding router sends an ARP reply to the requesting host.

Abstract: One embodiment disclosed relates to a method of assigning service priorities to traffic from a plurality of sources using meters. A packet is received and placed into a specific COS group. A fabric-adjusted meter modifier is determined depending on a technology of an uplink being used. The fabric-adjusted meter modifier is then added to a meter corresponding to the specific COS group. Another embodiment disclosed relates to a method of implementing COS functionality in a telecommunications system. A user-configurable function is defined by way of a user interface. The user-configurable function is assigned to be a meter modifier function associated with a class of service in the system.

Abstract: One embodiment disclosed relates to an apparatus for routing packets towards destination addresses. The apparatus includes at least a routing table and a route fragment cache. Each route in the routing table includes a network address, a mask, and a corresponding forwarding information. Each route fragment in the route fragment cache includes a section of a route from the routing table. The route fragments are such that no route fragment in the route fragment cache intersects any route in the routing table that is more specific than the route from which that fragment was generated.

Abstract: One embodiment disclosed relates to a method of processing a data packet. The data packet is received at a network device. A determination is made as to whether a multiple-key decision cache is hit by the data packet. At least one cached action is applied if the decision cache is hit. The data packet is processed using software routines if the decision cache is missed. Another embodiment disclosed relates to a network apparatus. The network apparatus includes a plurality of ports configured to receive data packets, and software routines are configured to process the data packets. Logic in the apparatus is configured to determine whether a multiple-key decision cache is hit by a data packet, to apply at least one cached action if the decision cache is hit, and to process the data packet using the software routines if the decision cache is missed.

Abstract: An embodiment of the invention evaluates the suitability of routes for use in a network route cache. An embodiment of the invention allows the use of network routing caches to be optimized such that routes that are not used to route to a large number of destinations can be offloaded into a less expensive host route cache.