CPC H04L 69/325 (2013.01) [H04L 45/38 (2013.01); H04L 45/44 (2013.01); H04L 45/54 (2013.01)] | 16 Claims |
1. For a data plane of a hardware forwarding element, a method for identifying an egress path for a packet received by the data plane, the method comprising:
identifying a plurality of possible egress paths for the packet, wherein the identified egress paths have a priority order;
identifying an operational status of each of the identified paths;
using the operational status and priority order to select an identified path as the egress path for the packet; and
based on failure of the selected egress path, redistributing one or more packet flows assigned to a failed selected egress path without redistributing packet flows assigned to operational paths;
wherein:
the identified paths are to be identified via different hash values that are to be calculated using different hash algorithms based upon header fields of the packet;
the header fields identify a flow;
a highest priority order operational path of the identified paths is to be selected for use in egress of the packet; and
in event that none of the identified paths is operational, another egress path is deterministically selected from the plurality of possible egress paths based upon a path selection sequence order that is determined based upon at least one computation involving the header fields.
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