Patent ID: 8605726

Claim:
A system for next hop scaling with link aggregation, the system comprising: a packet forwarding device including: a plurality of packet processors for performing the next hop and link aggregation group (LAG) selection operations; wherein ingress packet processors of the plurality of packet processors are configured to perform a link aggregation group (LAG) member selection operation for packets that arrive from external ports of the packet forwarding device and are further configured to indicate, for received packets that have a next hop on a different packet processor, that an egress next hop selection operation is needed; wherein an egress packet processor of the plurality of packet processors is configured to, for the packets for which the egress next hop selection operation is indicated, perform the egress next hop and member selection operations and to limit forwarding of the packets to active LAG group members local to the egress packet processor; a memory associated with each of the plurality of packet processors stores relay entries for next hops connected to a remainder of the plurality of packet processors; and wherein the memory associated with each of the plurality of packet processors stores a single relay entry for each of the remainder of the plurality of packet processors.