| 摘要 |
Mechanisms for storing and searching a hierarchy of items are disclosed whic h may be particularly useful for implementing security policies (312, 314, 319 I) and security associations (311, 313, 318), such as, but not limited to Internet Protocol security (IPsec). A hierarchy of items is stored in a sear ch priority order. Multiple element definitions and groups of elements are identified. Representations of the element definitions and elements are stor ed in a prioritized searchable data structure (310) in decreasing search priori ty such that representations of each particular element definition is stored after representations of a set of particular elements associated with the particular element definition and before representations of lower priority element definitions and their associated elements. The element definitions m ay include Internet Protocol security policies (312, 314, 319) and the elements may include Internet Protocol security associations (311, 313, 318). The searchable data structure may include an associative memory or a plurality o f associative memory entries.
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