Patent ID: 7813277

Claim:
An apparatus comprising one or more network interfaces; a plurality of processors; a work order module operative to maintain a queue of work entries, one or more of the work entries including a task description, a packet pointer, and a tag; and schedule work entries in the queue for the plurality of processors such that only a single processor of the plurality of processors is provided a work entry labeled with a given tag; a memory operative to define a hierarchical partition configuration, the hierarchical partition configuration comprising a plurality of partitions, the memory further operative to buffer packets received at the one or more network interfaces; wherein the plurality of processors, to schedule received packets for transmission according to the hierarchical partition configuration, are each operative to: receive, from the work order module, an indication of a first work entry, wherein the first work entry is associated with a packet to be processed and includes a tag identifying a partition of the plurality of partitions, forward the packet corresponding to the first work entry to a parent partition of the identified partition by modifying the first work entry to include a tag of the parent partition, and resubmit the first modified work entry to the work order module.