Patent ID: 11909656
Assignee: NOKIA SOLUTIONS AND NETWORKS OY
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC G  H

Claim 22:
23. A network comprising:
at least one software-based processor configured to implement at least one virtual network function (VNF) associated with flow processing;
at least one hardware accelerator, wherein the software-based processor is configured to offload at least some of the flow processing to the hardware accelerator; and
a module external to the software-based processor and the hardware accelerator and configured to examine a plurality of flows being processed by the network and determine which one or more flows are more suitable for offloading from the software-based processor to the hardware accelerator than one or more other flows, wherein:
the external module is configured to communicate, to the software-based processor, the relative suitability for offloading of a flow; and
the software-based processor is configured to use the relative suitability for offloading to determine whether or not to offload the flow.