US Patent 7062571 Efficient IP load-balancing traffic distribution using ternary CAMs

Disclosed is an apparatus and method for distributing traffic to one or more selected cache systems or servers. In general terms, a content addressable memory (e.g., a TCAM) is utilized to distribute traffic among a plurality of cache systems or servers. The content addressable memory is populated with a plurality of entries. Each entry within the content addressable memory generally indicates an action to be performed on a packet, such as to redirect the packet or to forward the packet to its original destination. When the action indicated by the content addressable memory is to redirect the packet, the content addressable memory also indicates where (e.g., to which cache system) to redirect the packet.