Reference Guide

Content Addressable Memory (CAM) | 263

Content Addressable Memory (CAM)

Content Addressable Memory (CAM) operations are supported on the S5000 switch.

This chapter includes the following topics:

• Content Addressable Memory

• CAM Allocation

• Testing CAM Usage for QoS Policies

• Displaying CAM-ACL Settings

• CAM Optimization

Content Addressable Memory

Content Addressable Memory (CAM) is a type of memory that stores information in the form of a lookup

table. On the S5000 switch, the CAM stores Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding information, access-lists

(ACL), flows, and routing policies.

CAM Allocation

User-configurable CAM allocation is supported on the S5000 switch in separate partitions for ingress and

egress ACLs and QoS policies. You can re-allocate memory space:

•For ingress ACLs and QoS policies by using the

cam-acl command in CONFIGURATION mode.

• For egress ACLs by using the

cam-acl-egress command in CONFIGURATION mode.

CAM space is allotted in FP blocks. The total allocated space for:

• Ingress CAM regions must equal 13 FP blocks.

• Egress CAM regions must equal 4 FP blocks.

Note that CAM consists of 16 FP blocks, but System Flow CAM requires 3 blocks that cannot be

re-allocated.