Juniper Networks, Inc.
Control plane compression of next hop information

Abstract:

A method includes receiving, by processing circuitry of a first network device, an indication of a logical address associated with an interface to a second network device and adding, by the processing circuitry, an entry to a forwarding table of the first network device, the entry in the forwarding table specifying the logical address. The method further includes adding, by the processing circuitry, an entry to a resolver database of the first network device to which the entry in the forwarding table specifying the logical address points and resolving, by the processing circuitry, the logical address to a hardware address of the second network device. In response to determining an existing next hop entry of a next hop database of the first network device corresponds to the hardware address of the second network device, the method includes pointing, by the processing circuitry, the entry in the resolver database to the existing next hop entry in the next hop database without adding an additional entry to the next hop database for the second network device.