A method for providing a parser by a network node, which includes a table defining a plurality of rules and a plurality of match fields required for extraction from an incoming data packet header in order to apply each of the respective rules is described. The method comprises determining at least one occurrence in the table of a first match field that requires extraction; and determining a parser for use in accordance with the at least one determined occurrence of the first match field. Furthermore, the step of determining at least one occurrence of the first match field comprises initializing a counter associated with the first match field and incrementing the counter for each of the plurality of rules that requires extraction of the first match field. And the step of determining a parser comprises determining the parser for use in accordance with the counter. A network node for carrying this method is also described.

The present disclosure describes techniques for hardware acceleration for routing programs. In some aspects communications between a routing determination program and a packet router are monitored in a router, both the routing determination program and the packet router being part of a software layer of the router. The communications include the routing determination program providing configuration data to the packet router. Based on the monitored communications, a packet processor is changed to reflect the configuration data, the packet processor being part of a hardware layer of the router. The packet processor performs packet routing operations of receiving packets, determining the next routers in the paths to the target destinations of the packets, and sending the packets to the next routers independent of the software layer.

Each router in a group of routers (110R.2, 110R.3) includes an interface (P4) assigned a common virtual address for multicast (VAM). The common VAM is advertised in router advertisings for multicast traffic; other addresses are advertised for unicast. The member routers in the group share multicast forwarding databases. Increased throughput is therefore provided for multicast traffic without traffic replication. Any router in the group can service requests from end-point sources and receivers of multicast traffic, e.g. requests to join or leave a multicast group, or requests presented as multicast packets for forwarding to a multicast group.

A method in a configuration server for configuring a communication system comprises configuring a plurality of nodes in a first cluster, and configuring a plurality of nodes in at least a second cluster, such that the configuration server acts as a common configuration server for at least first and second clusters. A method in a node associated with a cluster comprises determining a configuration service address relating to a common configuration server that is adapted to configure the cluster associated with the node and at least one other cluster, sending a request for configuration information to the common configuration server, and receiving configuration information from the common configuration server.

A communication device includes a forwarding processing unit configured to sort a telegram on the basis of processing content identification information included in header information of the telegram and a telegram processing unit configured to perform processing based on the processing content identification information on a payload of the telegram when the processing content identification information indicates processing in the communication device. The telegram processing unit can directly extract the payload of the telegram without performing protocol processing on the telegram and perform processing using the payload.

Embodiments include technologies for identifying an equivalence class identifier in a packet received by a node configured to perform information centric networking (ICN) in an ICN network, where the packet includes a name identifying content associated with a producer node in the ICN network. Embodiments also include determining an equivalence class for the packet by determining a name prefix of the name based, at least in part, on the equivalence class identifier. Embodiments further include taking an action affecting a particular packet, the action based, at least in part, on the equivalence class. In specific embodiments, the name includes a plurality of name components, and the equivalence class identifier is a count indicating a number of name components in the name to be grouped together to determine the name prefix. In further embodiments, the number is greater than a particular number of name components in a routable name prefix.

Examples disclosed herein relate to matching a packet field in OpenFlow. In an example, an SDN controller may define a custom match field in a flow table entry of an OpenFlow table in a network switch. The network switch may use the custom match field to match against a packet field in a received packet.

Disclosed aspects relate to managing a cluster of compute nodes in a shared pool of configurable computing resources using a set of Small Computer System Interface Persistent Reservation (SCSI-PR) commands. The set of SCSI-PR commands may be used to monitor the cluster of compute nodes for an error event. The error event may be detected based on a set of values derived from the set of SCSI-PR commands. An error event response action may be determined with respect to the error event. Performance of the error event response action may be initiated.

A method is disclosed for more efficiently and economically transporting data on a network using network access links between the first switch, which is the entry point of the network, and an end-user device, which is either on a fixed link on a customer premises or is a mobile device. The method includes terminating one or more protocol sessions at the first switch and removing corresponding packet headers. The first switch creates a substitute packet, adding a substitute header that identifies the transport path and the communications connection. Removed headers are not delivered to the end-user device which processes received substitute packets into usable streams based on the substitute header.

Transferring data over a network includes identifying an application flow and mapping the application flow to a network bound connection.