Patent ID: 6606681
Filing Date: 2003-08-12
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A method for storing MAC addresses and MPLS labels in a content addressable memory, the content addressable memory including an associative portion and a random access portion, the associative portion including one or more entries each including a key, the random access portion for storing information relevant to each key, the method comprising:determining if a key is present in a first entry in the associative portion for a first context, either as a source address or destination address or both; locating a first key portion of the key to be associated with an MPLS label; checking first key portion for all other keys in the content addressable memory to see if the first key portion matches; if the first key portion does not match, marking the address in the associative portion of the first entry to indicate that the address is to be associated with a second context, the second context being an MPLS label; and adding information relevant to the second context and associated with the address to the random access portion including mapping the address to relevant information stored in the random access portion associated with the first context and the second context.