Inventors:
Anthony L. Alles - Sunnyvale CA, US
Arthur Lin - San Ramon CA, US
Shyam Prasad Pillalamarri - Palo Alto CA, US
Kent H. Headrick - Milpitas CA, US
David A. Mullenex - Foster City CA, US
Suhas A. Shetty - San Jose CA, US
Assignee:
Nortel Networks Limited - St. Laurent
International Classification:
G06F015/173
Abstract:
An internet service node (ISN) enabling the provision of desired service policies to each subscriber. The ISN may contain multiple processor groups, with each subscriber being assigned to a processor group. The assigned processor group may be configured with the processing rules, which provide the service policies desired, by a subscriber. A port may determine the specific processor group to which received data is to be forwarded. A content addressable memory with masks for individual locations may be implemented to quickly determines the processor group to which received data is to be assigned to. Due to the features of the present invention, an ISN may be able to serve a large number of subscribers efficiently. The ISN may be used at the edge of an access network.