Exemplary methods at a content centric networking (CCN) gateway located at an autonomous system (AS), wherein the CCN gateway is communicatively coupled to a CCN domain name system (DNS) server, include receiving, on a first face, a first interest message comprising of a first content name identifying a first content being requested by the first interest message. The methods include in response to determining the first content is not located at the AS, determining a first remote AS name that identifies a first remote AS where the first content is located, generating a first 2-level (2L) content name comprising of the first remote AS name and the first content name, forwarding the first interest message comprising of the first 2L content name, and in response to receiving a first content object (CO) message comprising of the first 2L content name and the first content, forwarding the first content.

A method for communication includes configuring a router to forward data packets over a network in accordance with Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) labels appended to the data packets. At least first and second entries, corresponding to respective first and second labels, are stored in a Next Hop Label Forwarding Entry (NHLFE) table in the router, such that each of the first entries contains a respective pointer to at least one of the second entries. Upon receiving in the router a data packet from the network, a first entry is selected from among the first entries in the NHLFE table and, responsively to the pointer in the first entry, a second entry is selected. The respective first and second labels from the selected first and second entries are pushed onto an MPLS label stack of the data packet.

In general, techniques for dynamically provisioning service chains are described. In one example a network device comprises a control unit having at least one processor coupled to a memory, wherein the control unit is configured to receive a services list comprising an ordered list of services, the ordered list of services specifying at least a first service and a second service. The network device also comprises a forwarding unit coupled to the control unit and configured to receive a packet of a packet flow from a first service node that has applied the first service to the packet, wherein the forwarding unit is configured to send, based at least on the ordered list of services, the packet to a second service node that applies the second service.

The present disclosure describes methods and systems for enabling simultaneous redirection and load-balancing of data packets to network elements in a network environment. In one embodiment, a data packet is received at a network element. The network element identifies a traffic bucket corresponding to the data packet. The traffic bucket includes a matching criterion that identifies a subset of network traffic to map to a node. The data packet is redirected, based on the traffic bucket, from a first address contained in a field of the data packet to a second address that corresponds to the node. The data packet is forwarded to the second address.

Network hardware devices organized in a wireless mesh network (WMN) in which one network hardware devices includes a first radio and a second radio coupled to a processing device. The processing device receives a request from a client consumption device via the first radio and determines a destination for the request as a second mesh network device. The processing device access a master routing table to determine that the second radio is to forward the request and forwards the request to the second radio. The second radio accesses a local routing table at the second radio to determine that a radio of a third mesh network device is a next-hop mesh network device in a first path to the second mesh network device. The second radio sends the request to the radio of the third mesh network device.

A data packet is received in a network element. The network element has a cache memory in which cache entries represent a portion of addresses stored in a main memory, The destination address and the cache entries each comprise a binary number. A first determination is made that a number M of the most significant bits of a cache entry and the destination address are identical. A second determination is made that an additional number M+L of the most significant bits of a cache entry and the destination address are identical. Routing information is then retrieved the cache memory, and the packet processed according to the routing information.

A method is implemented by a network device to dynamically optimize lookup speed in a packet processing table maintained at the network device while the network device is in operation. The method includes determining one or more runtime metrics of the packet processing table, selecting a lookup algorithm for the packet processing table from a set of lookup algorithms supported by the network device based on the one or more runtime metrics of the packet processing table, and configuring the network device to match incoming packets against rules in the packet processing table using the selected lookup algorithm for the packet processing table.

Systems, methods, architectures, mechanisms or apparatus for routing packets between source and destination endpoints associated with different autonomous systems without requiring public advertising of the addresses of the source and destination endpoints to other autonomous systems (ASN).

The method of creating a key entry includes inserting a routing instance identifier (RII) after at least a portion of a key entry of a routing instance (RI) FIB, in accordance with an encoding scheme. In other words, at least a portion of bits of the RI FIB key entry is located before bit(s) of the RII in the resulting, merged FIB key entry. Depending on the encoding scheme, the RII can be inserted at the end of the RI FIB key entry, or at an intermediary location within the RI FIB key entry (after a given number of bits). To form the merged FIB, the method is repeated multiple times on corresponding key entries of the RI FIB. There is also provided a method of creating a search key to lookup the merged FIB.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a cluster that includes a first node and a second node, and the first node and the second node are configured to cooperatively perform a forwarding service on a first packet, where the first node is configured to receive the first packet by using an inbound interface and determine the inbound interface; and the second node is configured to determine an outbound interface according to a forwarding table corresponding to the forwarding service and forward the first packet by using the outbound interface of the second node. In addition, the embodiments of the present invention further provide other clusters and forwarding methods. The foregoing technical solutions help to reduce software and hardware resources occupied by a cluster.