Classifying traffic at a network node using multiple on-chip memory arrays

摘要

A technique for classifying traffic at a network node includes programming multiple on-chip memory arrays with identical search entries, receiving multiple packets, and distributing classification searches related to the packets among the multiple on-chip memory arrays. In an embodiment, the on-chip memory arrays are content-addressable memory (CAM) arrays. In another embodiment, the distributing of classification searches related to the packets is performed in an alternating fashion with respect to a fixed order.