Ordered lookup with bypass matching for scalable per-flow classification in layer 4 routers

Abstract

In order to provide different service treatments to individual or aggregated hows, layer 4 routers in Integrated Services networks need to classify packets into different queues. The classification module of layer 4 routers must be fast enough to support gigabit links at a rate of millions of packets per second. In this work, we present a new software method OLBM to lookup multiple fields of a packet, in a dynamically pre-defined order, against the classification database. This algorithm also uses a technique called bypass matching and can classify packets at a rate of well over one million packets per second while scaling to support more than 300k flows. Complexity analysis and experiment measurements are also presented in this study. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.