Patent ID: 7710963

Claim:
A network device, comprising: a switch fabric; and a plurality of packet forwarding devices connected via the switch fabric, each of the plurality of packet forwarding devices comprising: logic to: receive a first data packet, determine that the first data packet is to be forwarded to more than one of the plurality of packet forwarding devices, identify one of a plurality of binary forwarding schemes, each of the plurality of binary forwarding schemes representing the plurality of packet forwarding devices to which the first data packet is to be forwarded as nodes in a tree, the nodes comprising a root node, branch nodes and at least one leaf node, where an ingress packet forwarding device, of the plurality of packet forwarding device, that received the first data packet corresponds to the root node, where when identifying the one of a plurality of binary forwarding schemes, the logic is to identify a first binary forwarding scheme in which none of the plurality of packet forwarding devices forwards more than two copies of the first data packet to the switch fabric, forward the copies of the first data packet to the switch fabric where the plurality of binary forwarding schemes comprises two binary forwarding schemes, and where the branch nodes and the at least one leaf node associated with the tree in a first one of the two binary forwarding schemes are ordered in a sequential order and where the branch nodes and the at least one leaf node associated with the tree in a second one of the two binary forwarding schemes are ordered in a reverse sequential order with respect to the sequential order of the first binary forwarding scheme.