System and method for providing fast and efficient flushing of a forwarding database in a network processor

摘要

Aspects of the disclosure pertain to a system and method for providing fast and efficient flushing of a forwarding database in a network processor. The present disclosure provides a deterministic mechanism to implement a flush operation for flushing the forwarding database. A dual FDB approach, a means for switching from one FDB to another in the event of a failure, and FDB flush operation as a background task are key features of this disclosure. The effective time for completing the flush operation is within a sub-50 millisecond time frame and is independent of the number of entries in the forwarding database. The flush operation may be performed using software.

主权项

1. A method for providing protection switching via a processor of a node included in a plurality of nodes configured in a ring topology, the method comprising:
receiving a notification that a link failure has occurred within the ring topology; providing a protection domain output via a first lookup table of the processor in response to receiving the notification that the link failure has occurred; receiving the protection domain output via a second lookup table of the processor; based upon the received protection domain output, generating a selector output via the second lookup table; and based upon the second lookup table selector output, disconnecting a first forwarding database from a packet processing path.