A NETWORK DEVICE FOR SUPPORTING MULTIPLE UPPER LAYER NETWORK PROTOCOLS OVER A SINGLE NETWORK CONNECTION

摘要

The present invention provides a network device with at least one physical interface or port (44,68) that is capable of transferring network packets including data organized into one or more upper layer network protocols. Network packets are received by the port (44,68) and a port subsystem in accordance with a physical layer network protocol and transferred to forwarding subsystems within the network device in accordance with the upper layer protocols into which the network packets data has been organized. Network packets including data organized in accordance with ATM are then transferred to one or more ATM forwarding subsystems, network packets including data organized in accordance with MPLS are transferred to one or more MPLS forwarding subsystems, and network packets including data organized in accordance with IP are transferred to one or more IP forwarding subsystems.