Effects of a Hash-based Scheduler on Cache Performance in a Parallel Forwarding System

We investigate the confrontation of load splitting and caching in high-performance parallel network forwarding systems. Our study demonstrates that hashbased load splitting schemes tend to significantly improve the temporal locality of the address stream submitted to a single routing engine (RE), which in turn greatly facilitates caching as a means of increasing system performance. We also show that the impact of locality on the efficiency of load balancing cannot be ignored: load balancing in a parallel forwarding system cannot be studied in isolation from the caching issues.