US Patent 10091090 Packet forwarding in software defined networking

Based on an example, two forwarding pipelines are configured in a software defined networking (SDN) switch. After receiving, from an SDN controller, a flow entry adding instruction comprising a flow entry to be added and a table identifier (ID) indicating a flow table that the flow entry is to be added to, an SDN switch adds the flow entry into the flow table corresponding to the table ID, wherein the flow table is in the first forwarding pipeline or the second forwarding pipeline. If the flow table and its next flow table are in different forwarding pipelines, the SDN switch adds an action of forwarding to the internal interface to the flow entry.