Patent ID: 7042885

Claim:
A distributed routing platform comprising: a service control card to provide a generic rule for each class in a plurality of classes of packets, wherein the generic rule for a particular class indicates a service to be provided to each packet in that class; a plurality of transport service modules, wherein each of the transport service modules is configured to: receive, from the service control card, the generic rule for a class of packets, wherein the generic rule indicates a service provided by that transport service module, and generate from the generic rule i) a data rule indicating the service to be provided by that transport service module to the particular class of packets indicated in the generic rule: and ii) a control rule indicating that packets should be forwarded to that transport service module for performing the service on the particular class of packets; transmit the control rule to at least one other transport service module; receive a packet and determine the class of the packet; determine, using the data rule or the control rule associated with the class of the received packet, whether to perform a service on the packet at this transport service module according to the data rule associated with the class of the received packet or forward the packet to another transport service module to perform the service according to the control rule associated with the class of the received packet, and if the determination is to perform the service at this transport service module, perform the service; otherwise, encapsulate the packet with a switchtag and forward the packet to the other transport service module to perform the service on the packet.