Patent attributes
In one embodiment, new Segment Routing capabilities are used in the steering of packets through Segment Routing nodes in a network. A Segment List includes a set of one or more Segment List (SL) Groups, each of which identifies one or more Segments contiguously or non-contiguously stored in the Segment List (or stored across multiple Segment Lists) of a Segment Routing packet. Each SL Group typically includes one Segment that is encoded as a Segment Identifier, and may include Segments that are Extended Values. The steering order of SL Groups is not required to be the same order as they are listed in the Segment List, as the value of Segments Left may be increased, remain the same, or decreased (possibly to skip a next SL Group) and possibly based on the result of an evaluation of a conditional expression.