US Patent 8189576 Systems and methods for processing packets with multiple engines

A system includes an input device configured to receive a packet having a header and a packet processing device. The packet processing device is configured to examine the header, identify at least one function from a group of functions based on at least a portion of the header, where the group of functions includes an index table lookup function, a filtering function, and a longest best match lookup function, perform the identified at least one function for the packet to obtain a result, and forward the packet using the result.