Patent ID: 8094659

Claim:
A network switch device for use in a computer network, the switch device comprising: a first network interface and a second network interface; a first memory that stores rules used to assign a plurality of virtual routers implemented in the network switch device, wherein the network switch device serves a plurality of organizations and the virtual routers are configured to segregate communications traffic within the network switch device of a particular organization from communications traffic within the network switch device of other organizations; a virtual router classification engine that receives at least one of a source Internet Protocol (IP) address and a destination IP address of a packet received via the first interface, and also receives additional information related to the packet, and uses the additional information and the at least one of the source IP address and the destination IP address to perform a multi-field look-up in the first memory to determine a rule based on the multi-field look-up, matching the packet, for determining one of the virtual routers for routing the packet; a second memory that stores a plurality of action entries, wherein an action entry associates a rule to an action, and wherein one of the action entries is assignment of the one virtual router for routing the packet; and a router engine configured i) to implement the plurality of virtual routers, ii) to select the one virtual router determined by the virtual router classification engine, and iii) to use the one virtual router to determine that the packet is to be forwarded to the second network interface for transmission.