Patent ID: 9461912
Filing Date: 2016-10-04
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method for selecting a Processing Unit (PU) for traffic analysis from a plurality of PUs, the method comprising: receiving, by a device for selecting the PU to which Ethernet based tunnelled Internet Protocol (IP) traffic is to be redirected, the Ethernet based tunnelled IP traffic transmitted from a first network node to a second network node of an IP communications network, the Ethernet based tunnelled IP traffic comprising an Ethernet based tunnelled IP packet, the Ethernet based tunnelled IP packet comprising a header and a payload, the header containing a destination Ethernet address and the payload containing an inner user IP header of an inner user IP packet; receiving, by the device, one or more load indicators from the plurality of PUs, each load indicator indicating the load of one of the plurality of PUs; modifying, by an Ethernet Switch, the destination Ethernet address contained in the header of the Ethernet based tunnelled IP packet based on the inner user IP header; selecting, by the device, the PU for traffic analysis from the plurality of PUs by considering the load of each of the plurality of PUs as indicated by the received one or more load indicators; wherein the Ethernet based tunnelled IP traffic comprising the Ethernet based tunnelled IP packet is to be redirected to the selected PU in accordance with the modified destination Ethernet address; wherein the selecting the PU for traffic analysis comprises selecting one PU for all Ethernet based tunnelled IP packets of a data session.