GBSA: A group based search algorithm for packet classification

Packet: classification is an ubiquitous and key building block for many critical network devices such as routing, fire-walls and load balancing. Despite the enormous number of research performed on this topic, yet it is still one of the main bottlenecks in designing fast network devices. In this paper we propose a novel algorithm GBSA for packet classification that is scalable, fast and efficient. On average the algorithm consumes 0.4 MB of memory for a 10k rule set. The classification time per packet in worst case is 2 μs, and the pre-processing speed is 3M Rule/sec based on a CPU operating at 3.4 GHz.