Fast multi-match packet classification using index bits

High performance packet classification is one of the most important requirements for next generation network services. Even though many multi-dimensional classification algorithms have been proposed, most of them are precluded from commercial tools due to their complexity or high memory requirements. This paper, presents a new efficient packet classification method based on a 5-field search algorithm. Our new algorithm uses only 75 KB of inexpensive external SRAM. The main advantage of proposed method is simplicity and high speed which it made it attractive for high speed application such as IPV6. The implementation results show that our architecture can store 10K real-life 5-tuple rules in on-chip memory of a single FPGA and sustain 40 Gbps throughput for packets with minimum size of 40 bytes.