The present state of this MPC ingress cache. The states are: doesNotExist (1) -- the state is not yet available inactive (2) -- state exists, entry is not yet active. For an example, if using the Finite State Machine Appendix I.2, then the states Cached and query are considered `inactive'. active (3) -- state exists, entry is active. For an example, if using the Finite State Machine in Appendix I.2, then the states resolved and refresh are considered `active'. negative (4) -- state exists, entry is negative, which could mean a NAK response was received, or entry is doing a retry, etc. For example, if using the Finite State Machine in Appendix I.2, then the state `hold down' is considered `negative'.