Patent ID: 9565097
Date: 2017-02-07
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A network device for processing packets, the network device comprising a processor, and the network device further comprising: an interface for receiving a plurality of packets associated with a flow, one or more of the plurality of packets having associated header data and content; a multi-mode classification engine in communication with the interface, the multi-mode classification engine comprising a header classification engine for identifying an application associated with the flow based on a content of two or more first packets in the plurality of packets, wherein none of the first packets is addressed to the network device, and wherein identifying the application includes performing an analysis on the content of the two or more of the first packets; and a routing engine in communication with the multi-mode classification engine, the routing engine comprising an application based routing engine for determining a forwarding destination for one or more second packets associated with the flow based on the application associated with the flow using an application based policy and a non-application based policy, wherein if the application based policy indicates that the one or more second packets are forwarded to a first destination and the non-application based policy indicates that the one or more second packets are forwarded to a second destination, and wherein the network device is configured with a rule indicating whether to give a preference to the application based policy or to the non-application based policy, then the network device applies the rule to determine whether to forward the one or more second packets to the first destination or to the second destination as the forwarding destination, and forwarding the one or more second packets according to the determined forwarding destination using the interface.