Patent ID: 8830841

Claim:
A multi-stage engine for processing Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) data units in a network device that includes an ingress interface from which an OAM data unit is received, the engine comprising: a memory to store OAM action data indicating a plurality of sets of OAM actions to be performed with respect to OAM data units in a plurality of flows of communication traffic received by the network device; a first processing stage in a network device, the first processing stage configured to: identify a first flow of communication traffic to which the OAM data unit belongs, wherein the first flow of communication traffic is identified from among the plurality of flows of communication traffic, and generate an indicator of the first flow of communication traffic to which the OAM data unit belongs; and a second processing stage including an action identification module to identify, from the OAM action data stored in the memory, a first set of multiple OAM actions corresponding to the first flow using the indicator generated by the first processing stage, wherein the first set of multiple OAM actions includes at least one action that involves modifying the OAM data unit; and a processing module to process the OAM data unit in accordance with the first set of multiple OAM actions identified by the action identification module.