Patent ID: 11936569
Assignee: MARVELL ISRAEL (M.I.S.L) LTD.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 9:
10. A first network device, comprising:
a plurality of network ports configured to couple to a plurality of network links; and
a packet processor coupled to the plurality of network ports, the packet processor configured to:
process packets received via a network port among the plurality of network ports at least to determine one or more network ports, among the plurality of network ports, via which the packets are to be transmitted from the first network device,
classify, according at least in part to source address information and destination address information obtained from headers of the packets, the packets into packet flows,
select, based at least in part on one or more characteristics of data being transmitted in respective packet flows, one of i) a first packet memory having a first memory access bandwidth and ii) a second packet memory having a second memory access bandwidth different from the first memory access bandwidth of the first packet memory, for buffering packets that belong to the respective packet flows while the packets are being processed by the first network device, the second packet memory being coupled to a second network device, the second network device coupled to the first network device via a first network port, among the plurality of network ports of the first network device, via a network link external to the first network device, wherein the one or more characteristics of data are indicative of burstiness of transmission of corresponding ones of the respective packet flows,
buffer the packets that belong to the respective packet flows in the one of i) the first packet memory or ii) the second packet memory that is selected for buffering the packets that belong to the respective packet flows, including sending the packets that belong to the respective packet flows for which the second packet memory is selected from the first port of the first network device to the second network device via the network link external to the first network device,

after processing the packets that belong to the respective packet flows, retrieve the packets that belong to the respective packet flows from the first packet memory or the second packet memory in which the packets that belong to the respective packet flows are buffered, and
forward the packets that belong to the respective packet flows to the one or more network ports determined for transmission of the packets, wherein the packets that belong to the respective packet flows are to be transmitted via the one or more network ports determined for transmission of the packets.