Jean Pierre Bordes

An Architecture for a Scalable Broadband IP Services Switch

Core routers cannot provide the generalized and flexible computing power for supporting the substantial amount of processing needed for services on the Internet, where configuration and processing is needed per user for a large number of users. In this paper we propose an architecture for a highly scalable broadband IP services switch which supports per user services for a large number of users, provides for isolation between users and between groups of users, provides security and authentication services through tunneling protocols such as L2TP and IPSec and supports traffic management through policing and shaping for fairness among different users. In this architecture the considerable timeconsuming, repetitive processing is performed in specialized hardware while general purpose processing units are used for the computing power needed to enable the desired services. Load sharing and load balancing is used to distribute the computations between the general-purpose processing units.