Patent ID: 7362702

Claim:
A method performed by a router for routing virtual and non-virtual frames in a network, the router comprising a plurality of routing processors, each routing processor for receiving frames from the network, and for routing frames to the network, the method performed by each routing processor of the plurality, the method comprising: (a) a step for receiving a frame from the network; (b) a step for preparing a flow lookup in accordance with at least a portion of the frame; (c) a step for obtaining from a memory circuit a first result of the flow lookup and if the flow look up is incomplete, the frame is passed to a supervising processor that specifies a route or discards the frame; (d) a step for preparing a second lookup in accordance with the first result and if a sub flow flag is set; (e) a step for obtaining from the memory circuit a second result of the second lookup; (f) a step for determining if a context for the frame is available at a location other than where the frame is received; (g) a step for building a forward frame, based on the first result and the second result, for processing by another processor at the other location where the context is available for the frame; (h) a step for marking the forward frame for handling by the other processor; (i) a step for determining if a context for the frame is available at the processor receiving the frame and if the context is unavailable at the received location or another location as determined in step (f), then building a context for routing the frame; and (j) a step for routing the frame to the network in accordance with at least a portion of the second result.