High Router Flexibility and Performance by Combining Dedicated Lookup Hardware (IFT ), off the Shelf Switches and Linux

In this paper we propose a new router architecture that combines both flexibility and performance. This router architecture aims at combining the best of two worlds: the commercial routers, which have a proven track for stability and performance but lack the flexibility of routers with open source operation system. The latter is particularly flexible because the source code is accessible for analysis and modification purposes as opposed to the traditional commercial routers, whose software can be altered by their manufacturers only