SYSTEM AND PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR FACILITATING FORWARDING OF DATA PACKETS ...

US 20070248096A1

(io) Pub. No.: US 2007/0248096 Al (43) Pub. Date: Oct. 25, 2007

(54) SYSTEM AND PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR FACILITATING FORWARDING OF DATA PACKETS THROUGH A NODE OF A DATA TRANSFER NETWORK USING MULTIPLE TYPES OF FORWARDING TABLES

(75) Inventors: Jay R. Herring, Poughkeepsie, NY (US); Scot H. Rider, Pleasant Valley, NY (US)

Correspondence Address:

HESLIN ROTHENBERG FARLEY & MESITI
P.C.

5 COLUMBIA CIRCLE
ALBANY, NY 12203 (US)

(73) Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION,

Armonk, NY (US)

(21) Appl. No.: 11/766,475

(22) Filed: Jun. 21, 2007

Related U.S. Application Data

(63) Continuation of application No. 10/737,989, filed on Dec. 17, 2003.

Publication Classification

(51) Int. CI.

H04L 12/56 (2006.01)

(52) U.S. CI 370/392

(57) ABSTRACT

Method, system and program product are provided for reducing size of memory required for a switching node's forwarding table by employing forwarding tables of different types to map received data packets addressed to downstream nodes and upstream nodes to appropriate output ports of the switching node. The method includes receiving a data packet at a data transfer node of a network and selecting a forwarding table from multiple types of forwarding tables accessible by the node based on an attribute associated with the received data packet, and mapping the data packet to an output port of the node utilizing the forwarding table selected from the multiple types of forwarding tables based on the attribute associated with the packet.