Patent ID: 9729432
Date: 2017-08-08
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A packet switching device, comprising: a core-facing ingress interface and a core-facing egress interface configured to communicatively couple to a core network of a provider network; a first customer-facing ingress interface and a first customer-facing egress interface configured to communicatively couple to a first customer edge packet switching device of a customer network; a second customer-facing ingress interface and a second customer-facing egress interface each configured to communicatively couple to a second customer edge packet switching device of the customer network; one or more processing elements and memory; a customer-facing lookup entity configured to perform lookup operations on a plurality of customer-network Internet Protocol (IP) packets received on the first customer-facing ingress interface resulting in a determination of sending the plurality of customer-network IP packets to the second customer edge packet switching device by load balancing the plurality of customer-network received IP packets between the core network via the core-facing egress interface and the second customer edge packet switching device via the second customer-facing egress interface; and a core-facing lookup entity configured to perform lookup operations on IP addresses of a plurality of core-network IP packets received on the core-facing ingress interface resulting in a determination of sending the plurality of core-network IP packets to the second customer edge packet switching device via the second customer-facing egress interface, with the plurality of core-network IP packets including native received IP packets, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) encapsulated IP packets, or both native received IP packets and MPLS encapsulated IP packets, and wherein the core-facing lookup entity is not configured with load balancing information for load balancing the plurality of core-network IP packets.