Patent ID: 11960413
Assignee: GOOGLE LLC
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H  Y | IPC G  H

Claim 10:
11. A flow table management system, comprising:
A hardware memory module configured to store a flow table including a plurality of network flow entries, and to store age information in an age state table, the flow table and the age state table being stored in respective data structures that are separate and independently accessible;
a network component communicatively coupled to the hardware memory module, the network component further comprising:
a memory storing a flow table age cache configured to store a set of recently active network flows;
a processor configured to execute a flow table management module, the flow table management module configured to manage a duration for which respective network flow entries in the flow table stored in the hardware memory module remain in the flow table by:
updating the flow table age cache with information indicating activity associated with the network flow;
periodically conducting a scan of the network flow entries in the flow table, the scan including for each entry in the flow table:
looking up the network flow associated with the entry in the flow table age cache;
in response to the network flow associated with the entry being found in the flow table age cache, updating timer information for the network flow stored in the memory module; and
in response to the network flow associated with the entry not being found in the flow table age cache, evaluating an age of the entry based on the age information retrieved from the age state table, and removing the entry from the flow table in response to the age of the entry exceeding a threshold time value associated with the network flow.