METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REDUCING LOOK-UP TIME IN PACKET FORWARDING ON COMPUTER NETWORKS

A method and system for reducing the lookup time in packet forwarding on computer networks. A first lookup is performed in a memory tree to find a first protocol forwarding entry in the memory tree. The forwarding entry includes first protocol (e.g., EGP) information and cached associated second protocol (e.g., IGP) information. Both EGP and IGP information are retrievable with the first lookup and used in the determination of an EGP route for the data packet. If the cached IGP information has been invalidated due to address updates, a second lookup can be performed to find an original IGP entry in the memory tree, the information from which can be cached in the EGP forwarding entry if a background maintenance task has finished designating all the EGP entries as having out-of-date caches.