Patent ID: 8649256

Claim:
A network device comprising: a forwarding component to transmit, within the network device, packet headers of a plurality of packets received at the network device via a network, the packet headers being separated from corresponding payloads, the forwarding component including a plurality of processing components; a plurality of routing components, only one of which is active at a time, an active routing component, of the plurality of routing components, to: maintain routing tables that contain packet routing information for the network, construct forwarding tables from the packet routing information, and provide, within the network device, the forwarding tables to an active processing component of the plurality of processing components, the active processing component determining destination information, for the plurality of packets, based on the forwarding tables, the forwarding tables being not provided to non-active processing components of the plurality of processing components, the plurality of routing components differing from the plurality of processing components; and an additional component to transmit, within the network device, the packet headers from the forwarding component to the active processing component to determine the destination information, for the plurality of packets, based on the forwarding tables.