Patent ID: 7848332

Claim:
An apparatus for routing information in a payload of a first network protocol, which payload includes a second network protocol, comprising: a network interface that is coupled to a network for communicating therewith a packet; a memory for storing information; a circuit block that is not a general purpose processor, wherein the circuit block is configured to perform the steps of: determining a first type for the first network protocol and a second type for the second network protocol that is nested within the payload of the first network protocol based on information in the packet; and storing into the memory classification data that indicates a unique combination of the first type and the second type; one or more processors; and one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out routing the packet based at least in part on the second network protocol without performing determining the first type and the second type based on information in the packet and cause the one or more processors to carry out storing into memory, in association with the classification data, an offset value for the second network protocol, wherein the offset value indicates a number of bits for aligning the header for the second network protocol relative to a boundary of a cache line for moving data between the memory and the one or more processors.