Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a routing control method, network device, and controller. The method may include the network device obtaining a route suppression request. The method may also include determining the second routing entry. Furthermore, the method may include setting a state of the second routing entry to a non-delivery state that is used to indicate that the second routing entry does not need to be delivered to a forwarding table. In the method, the network device may have a first routing entry and a second routing entry, an address prefix of the first routing entry is a first address prefix, an address prefix of the second routing entry is a second address prefix, a network segment to which the second address prefix belongs is a subset of a network segment to which the first address prefix belongs, and a mask in the second address prefix is greater than a mask in the first address prefix.

A method for optimized route caching includes comparing a destination address of a network packet to a first set of prefixes in a routing cache, and comparing the destination address to a second set of prefixes in a full routing table when a longest matching prefix for the destination address is not found in the routing cache. The method further includes copying the longest matching prefix and a set of sub-prefixes of the longest matching prefix from the full routing table to the routing cache, and forwarding the network packet.

A method for operating a network device, having data storage with selectably modifiable capacity for storing instructional data for a packet processing operation, includes detecting a need for additional storage for the instructional data, allocating an additional memory block without interrupting operation of the network device, associating with the additional memory block an additional address hashing function, different from each of at least one respective previous address hashing function associated with any previously-allocated memory block. Each respective previous address hashing function transforms a look-up key into a respective addressable location in a previously-allocated memory block, and the additional address hashing function transforms the look-up key into an addressable location in the additional memory block. When a block is deallocated, each unit of instructional data is reprocessed through the hashing function of a different block to which the unit of the instructional data will be moved.

The present disclosure provides a proactive method of prefix disaggregation in a network fabric when one or more communication failures are detected. In one aspect, a method includes determining, by a first node of a network fabric, a corresponding prefix disaggregation policy for at least one second node of the network fabric, the corresponding prefix disaggregation policy identifying one or more network prefixes that are inaccessible via the first node when at least one communication failure is detected in association with the first node; sending the corresponding prefix disaggregation policy to the second node; and causing the second node to implement the prefix disaggregation policy upon detecting the at least one communication failure.

Methods and apparatus for routing data packets in a communications network, such as a packet-switched network (e.g. an IP network). Instead of, or in addition to, conventional routing techniques such as longest prefix matching, the disclosure provides a method by which a network node can determine whether to defer transmission of a particular data packet based on geographical location and velocity data. Particularly for data that can tolerate high latency, this will serve to reduce consumption of network resources without adversely impacting user experience.

In a Shortest Path Bridge (SPB) network comprising a plurality of backbone edge bridges (BEBs), a gateway controller of the SPB network, establishes a link using Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP) with an external network domain; discovers via the link a source of a multicast stream originating outside of the SPB network; and determines a subset of the plurality of BEBs that are able to receive the multicast stream from the source. Once that occurs, the gateway controller selects a one of the subset of the plurality of BEBs to be a sole gateway BEB for the multicast stream; and then transmits to each of the subset of the plurality of BEBs an indication of the sole gateway BEB selected for the multicast stream.

A network access point (NAP) of a second type of network is configured to receive a first type of packet from a device configured to operate in only a first type of network. The NAP is configured to determine an appropriate namespace for the first type of packet based on an address of an intended destination of the first type of packet. The NAP is configured to encapsulate the first type of packet into a second type of packet for use in the second type of network. The NAP is configured to route the second type of packet to a plurality of devices subscribed to the namespace in the second type of network.

A method and apparatus of a network element that processes data by a network element with a data processing pipeline is described. In an exemplary embodiment, the network element receives network data and performs a policy-based routing lookup using one or more characteristics of the network data to retrieve a next hop identifier. In addition, the network element generates a key for the next hop identifier and performs a longest prefix match lookup to retrieve a forwarding result. The network element further determines a next hop interface based on the forwarding result.

A method of controlling the distribution of content in a network is described. The content traverses the network in packets comprising a packet header including an address associated with the content, and a packet payload including the content. The method includes obtaining the address associated with the content from the packet traversing the network and analysing the address to extract information associated with the content carried in the packet payload.

A device may receive, from a first device, a port control protocol (PCP) request that includes a customer side translator (CLAT) prefix and one or more private internet protocol version X (IPvX) addresses. The PCP request may be received via an internet protocol version Y (IPvY) network. The device may store the CLAT prefix and the one or more private IPvX addresses using a data structure. The device may receive a packet that includes a private IPvX of the one or more private IPvX addresses and a private IPvY address that includes the CLAT prefix and a second instance of the private IPvX address. The device may use an application layer gateway (ALG). The device may translate the private IPvX address to a public IPvX address using the CLAT prefix. The device may provide the packet that includes the public IPvX address to a second device that supports IPvX.