Patent ID: 7606248

Claim:
A method, comprising: a) classifying a plurality of packets with a plurality of network processors, each of said network processors classifying a different packet of said plurality of packets by examining look-up information stored in one of a plurality of look-up resources coupled thereto, with the look-up information contained in each of said plurality of look-up resources being the same and with the look-up resource coupled to one of the plurality of network processors differing from the look-up resource coupled to the remaining network processors of the plurality of network processors, the classifying including identification of a queue from amongst a plurality of queues for queuing the different packet; b) storing different pieces of the different packet into different memory units, each of said different memory units being managed by corresponding memory controllers, wherein each of said different memory units corresponds to a different dimension of each queue amongst the plurality of queues; and c) distributing header information units to the plurality of network processors prior to said classifying, each header information unit comprising header information from one of said plurality of packets.