Patent ID: 7983270

Claim:
A network device comprising: a memory management unit comprising: a longest prefix match (LPM) table configured to store, for each of a plurality of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, a count field based on a number of equal cost paths for each Internet Protocol IP address and a pointer to a route information table; and the route information table configured to store the equal cost paths for each of the IP addresses; the network device being configured to: find a destination IP address of a packet in the route information table; after finding the destination IP address in the route information table, find a longest prefix match for the destination IP address in the LPM table and a pointer to the route information table based on the longest prefix match; randomly choose one of the equal cost paths stored in the route information table based on the pointer associated with the longest prefix match; and send the packet out of the network device, the packet including route information for the chosen equal cost path.