Patent ID: 8817792

Claim:
A data forwarding method, comprising: obtaining, by a forwarding device, a packet; determining whether the packet is a long-session stream identifier packet; in response to determining the packet is not a long-session stream identifier packet, determining whether a layer-2 address of the packet is an interface address of the forwarding device, in response to determining the layer-2 address of the packet is not the interface address of the forwarding device, performing layer-2 forwarding processing, in response to determining the layer-2 address of the packet is the interface address of the forwarding device, performing Multi Protocol Label Switch MPLS forwarding processing if the packet is an MPLS packet, and in response to determining the layer-2 address of the packet is the interface address of the forwarding device, matching the packet with a preset stream forwarding table if the packet is a layer-3 Internet Protocol packet; if a corresponding table entry is matched, forwarding the packet according to the table entry; if a corresponding table entry is not matched, sending the packet to a packet processing engine for processing.