| CPC H04L 45/24 (2013.01) [H04L 45/42 (2013.01); H04L 45/566 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |

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1. A routing device in a network, comprising:
an ingress/egress linecard;
another linecard;
a fabric;
a processing system including a processor; and
a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
splitting a forwarding information base (FIB) for routes locally within the routing device such that the splitting of the FIB is hidden externally to the routing device;
storing low-volume routes prefixes of the FIB in a forwarding routing table of the another linecard; and
storing high-volume routes prefixes of the FIB in a routing table of the ingress/egress linecard,
wherein the ingress/egress linecard looks up a route of an incoming data packet, determines whether the incoming data packet bears a high-volume route prefix, forwards the incoming data packet bearing the high-volume route prefix through the fabric and out of the routing device, and sends the incoming data packet bearing a low-volume route prefix through the fabric to the another linecard.
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