Abstract: A method includes constructing a graph characterizing a set of packet headers associated with network traffic. The graph has a unique identifier for each possible combination of packet headers forming a path in the graph. A received packet is associated with a unique identifier in the graph. Characteristics of the received packet are reconstructed based upon the unique identifier.

Abstract: A network switch includes packet processing units in a first processor core. An interface module is connected to the packet processing units. The interface module supports a unified table search request interface and a unified table search response interface. A common memory pool is connected to the interface module. The common memory pool includes a variety of memory types configurable to support multiple parallel table search requests.

Abstract: A network switch includes a memory configurable to store alternate table representations of an individual trie in a hierarchy of tries. A prefix table processor accesses in parallel, using an input network address, the alternate table representations of the individual trie and searches for a longest prefix match in each alternate table representation to obtain local prefix matches. The longest prefix match from the local prefix matches is selected. The longest prefix match has an associated next hop index base address and offset value. A next hop index processor accesses a next hop index table in the memory utilizing the next hop index base address and offset value to obtain a next hop table pointer. A next hop processor accesses a next hop table in the memory using the next hop table pointer to obtain a destination network address.