Patent ID: 8665874

Claim:
A method of forwarding received data packets through a packet-switched network, comprising: configuring, in a router, a forwarding table based on aggregating router keys and aggregation instructions associated with the aggregating router keys received from a key manager, each aggregating router key representing a set of destinations, the forwarding table comprising at least one table entry and each of the at least one table entries comprising a candidate ingress key, an egress key, key index, an outgoing port indication, and an aggregation instruction; receiving a data packet comprising an ingress tag; applying a mathematical function, matching the ingress tag in the received data packet with the candidate ingress key of the at least one table entry in the forwarding table to find a matching table entry; if a matching table entry is found, selecting as an outgoing port to forward the received data packet the outgoing port corresponding to the outgoing port indication of the matching table entry; creating an egress tag according to the egress key or the aggregation instruction of the matching table entry; attaching the key index of the matching table entry and the created egress tag to the received data packet; and forwarding the received data packet attached with the created egress tag using the selected outgoing port to another router.