Patent ID: 9306848
Filing Date: 2016-04-05
CPC Classification: G06F,H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method, comprising: evaluating a portion of a received network packet using a plurality of comparator units of a networking element, each of the comparator units comprising one or more hardware units that output a bit based on determining whether the network packet portion satisfies a condition associated with an access control list (ACL), wherein the combined outputs of the plurality of comparator units are represented by a bit vector; transmitting the bit vector to a content addressable memory (CAM); upon determining that the bit vector satisfies an entry in the CAM, selecting one or more actions corresponding to the satisfied entry to be performed by the networking element, wherein the one or more actions are part of the ACL, and wherein the one or more hardware units of the comparator unit are separate from the CAM; storing an instruction in a register, the instruction comprising at least one comparison value and an operation code; and configuring at least one of the comparator units to compare the comparison value to the network traffic portion based on an operation represented by the operation code.