Patent ID: 8582575

Claim:
A packet processing method of a backbone edge switching apparatus, comprising: generating a first flow of a data packet by performing a lookup with respect to particular layer information of the data packet when the data packet is input; determining whether an additional lookup for the data packet is set based on a result of the lookup, and generating a second flow of the data packet by performing the additional lookup with respect to another layer information of the data packet when the additional lookup is set; and determining a transmission flow of the data packet by combining the first flow and the second flow and concatenating flow IDs of the first and second flow wherein the determining a transmission flow comprises combining an identifier (ID) of the second flow with an ID of the first flow to thereby determine a combined ID as an ID of the transmission flow of the data packet wherein the lookup according to the other layer information corresponds to the lookup using information associated with an upper layer of a particular layer wherein the lookup according to the particular layer information corresponds to the lookup using at least one of physical input port information and layer 2 (L2) information.