Patent ID: 9531598
Filing Date: 2016-12-27
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A computer implemented method of querying a traffic forwarding table at a device in a computer network, the traffic forwarding table having entries which are accessible using a key, the method comprising at a monitor computer connected to the computer network: identifying a forwarding address for use in querying the traffic forwarding table, wherein the forwarding address constitutes only part of a key and wherein a remaining part of the key is an embedded index in the traffic forwarding table; combining the forwarding address with a plurality of embedded indices of the traffic forwarding table to generate a set of keys for querying the traffic forwarding table; generating a first query message for the forwarding table using at least one of said set of keys; transmitting the first query message from the monitor computer to the device via the computer network; receiving a result message from the device, the result message containing a next hop address and an egress port identifier, said egress port identifier being equal to zero; generating a second query message using at least one of a new set of keys, wherein the new set of keys is generated by combining the next hop address with the plurality of embedded indices; and transmitting the second query message to the device.