Patent 7716380 was granted and assigned to Juniper Networks on May, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A network device includes a data structure and an ager. The data structure includes a group of positions. One or more of the positions are associated with at least one item. The ager is configured to sequentially analyze each position of the group of positions, and recycle, at each analyzed position, any item associated with the analyzed position.