Address Lookup and Classification.ppt

Address Lookup and Classification Pankaj Gupta Principal Architect and Member of Technical Staff, Netlogic Microsystems pankaj@ /~pankaj Generic Router Architecture (Review from EE384x) Lookups Must be Fast Memory Technology (2006) Lookup Mechanism is Protocol Dependent Outline Routing Lookups Overview Exact matching Direct lookup Associative lookup Hashing Trees and tries Longest prefix matching Why LPM? Tries and compressed tries Binary search on prefix intervals References Packet Classification Exact Matches in ATM/MPLS Exact Matches in Ethernet Switches Layer-2 addresses are usually 48-bits long, The address is global, not just local to the link, The range/size of the address is not “negotiable” (like it is with ATM/MPLS) 248 1012, therefore cannot hold all addresses in table and use direct lookup. Exact Matches in Ethernet Switches (Associative Lookup) Associative memory (aka Content Addressable Memory, CAM) compares all entries in parallel against incoming data. Exact MatchesHashing Use a pseudo-random hash function (relatively insensitive to actual function) Bucket linearly searched (or could be binary search, etc.) Leads to unpredictable number of memory references Exact Matches Using HashingNumber of memory references Exact Matches in Ethernet SwitchesPerfect Hashing Exact Matches in Ethernet SwitchesHashing Advantages: Simple to implement Expected lookup time is small Updates are fast (except with perfect hash functions) Disadvantages Relatively inefficient use of memory Non-deterministic lookup time (in rare cases) ? Attractive for software-based switches. However, hardware platforms are moving to other techniques (but they can do well with a more sophisticated form of hashing) Exact Matches in Ethernet Switches Trees and Tries Exact Matches in Ethernet Switches Multiway tries Exact Matches in Ethernet Switches Multiway tries Exact Matches in Ethernet Switches Trees and Tries Advantages: Fixed lookup time Simple to implement and update Disadvan