2 results about "Forwarding equivalence class" patented technology

A method of forwarding a data packet includes, in part, receiving the data packet at an ingress interface, reordering entries of the data packet such that a first forwarding equivalence class (FEC), indexed by a first forwarding lookup table, is caused to point to a virtual private network (VPN) identifier associated with a tunnel through which the data packet is to be forwarded. The reordering of the entries causes a second FEC to point to a multitude of common tunnel header entries. The second FEC is indexed by the first FEC and has a lower level than the first FEC. The data packet with the reordered entries is forwarded through the tunnel. The egress tunnel header rewrite table entries are also reordered in accordance with which the data packet is forwarded.

A technique of restoring data in a network device includes, after a restart of an agent in the network device, obtaining, by the agent, a current fingerprint of a FEC (forwarding equivalence class) value stored in a persisted information base. The technique further includes retrieving, by the agent, a FEC identifier from a pre-restart persisted table based on the current fingerprint, the pre-restart persisted table associating multiple fingerprints of FEC values with respective FEC identifiers used by the agent prior to the restart, and updating a dataset of the agent to associate the retrieved FEC identifier with the FEC value.