| 摘要 |
The invention relates to a router or switch in a broadband network operating through packet flow forwarding. The router provides a CPU switched software flow ( 12 ) and a hardware switched accelerated flow ( 10 ) in accordance with Hierarchical Flow Forwarding (HEF) by utilizing a mutual flow table ( 20 ) partitioned into at least a hardware part ( 22 ), an intermediate part ( 24 ) and a software part ( 26 ) for flow forwarding. The table is examined on a regular basis determined by a time period, and sorted by the ratio of number of packets per time period. It is filled up with the highest ratios in the hardware part ( 22, 22 a), the intermediate ratios in the intermediate part ( 24, 22 a, 26 a) and the lowest ratios in the software part ( 26 ). Those packet flows that qualified for the intermediate flow ( 22 a, 26 a) in a previous examining remain in their memory space if they still qualify for the intermediate part ( 24 ). This prevents the exchange between memory spaces ( 22 a, 26 a) within the intermediate part of the table relieving the CPU from this workload. |
