Techniques for managing ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) resources in heterogeneous systems

摘要

Techniques for managing ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) in a network device/system are provided. In one embodiment, the network device/system can include one or more TCAMs and can execute a TCAM manager for each TCAM. Each TCAM manager can manage allocation of resources of its associated TCAM, as well as manage access to the TCAM by one or more network applications running on the device/system. In this way, the TCAM managers can hide TCAM implementation differences (e.g., different sizes, different capabilities, etc.) from the network applications and thereby enable the applications to interact with the TCAMs in a uniform manner.

主权项

1. A network system comprising:
a first ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) supporting one or more first hardware capabilities; a second TCAM supporting one or more second hardware capabilities that are not supported by the first TCAM; a processor; and a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
execute a first TCAM manager associated with the first TCAM; andexecute a second TCAM manager associated with the second TCAM, wherein each of the first and second TCAM managers:exposes, to a network application running on the network system, a unified application programming interface (API) for programming a rule into its associated TCAM, the unified API being identical for the first and second TCAM managers; andupon receiving an invocation of the unified API from the network application, determines how to program the rule based on its associated TCAM's supported hardware capabilities.