Patent ID: 8626954

Claim:
A packet processing system for providing application-aware hot redundancy, the system comprising: a plurality of active devices, each of the plurality of active devices comprising: a receiving interface configured to receive a packet belonging to an active flow, a processor configured to perform deep packet inspection to identify an application associated with the active flow, a forwarding interface configured to forward the packet belonging to the active flow according to a forwarding policy, and a redundancy block configured to determine whether the application requires hot redundancy and, if so, to transmit a message from which state information associated with the active flow may be derived; and at least one protecting device providing redundancy for the plurality of active devices, wherein the protecting device is in communication with each of the active devices and is configured to: receive the message regarding the active flow from a respective active device of the plurality of active devices, derive state information from the message, and resume packet forwarding operations for the active flow using the state information upon failure of the respective active device.