VIRTUAL NETWORK DEVICE ARCHITECTURE

摘要

A network device such as a router or a switch is comprised of a control module and a plurality of physical line cards. The control module includes a control processor virtual machine, a plurality of route processing virtual machines and one or more instances of a line card virtual machine. The line card virtual machine operates to receive routing information base update information, to modify the routing information base according to the update information and to update each instance of a plurality of forwarding information bases included on each of the physical line cards.

主权项

1. A networking device, comprising:
a chassis; a backplane housed in the chassis; a physical line card housed in the chassis and coupled to the backplane, wherein the physical line card includes at least one port and a physical line card database; and a virtualization subsystem housed in the chassis and coupled to the physical line card through the backplane, wherein the virtualization subsystem is configured to:
determine a database update;determine that the database update provides modifications to information in the physical line card database and, in response, update information in the physical line card database using the database update; andperform, using information in the physical line card database, layer 2 and layer 3 protocol processing for the physical line card to process and forward a packet that was received through the at least one port such that the packet is forwarded through the at least one port.