Novel network device architecture with scalable and reconfigurable network services

A novel network device architecture was proposed to eliminate the services' inconsistency and inefficiency while performing multiple service functions by individual network devices. The whole process of packet processing in networking devices such as firewalls, VPNs and load balance devices was formalized as a set of unified rules and actions. All the network service functions were divided into two phases-classifying and processing, and a classifying rules set based on hash table was designed. The rules and action codes can be deployed and upgraded at running time. An architecture supporting parallel deployment and execution of network services was designed based on network processors and an XIP2400 processor prototype was developed. The experimental result showed that this architecture made the network service function reconfigurable and scalable, avoided the redundant classifying of multiple devices, and solved the performance decreasing caused by integrating diversiform services by importing the parallel processing.