Patent ID: 8327014

Claim:
A device for network communication, comprising: a high-speed forwarding device having a memory; and a service engine (SE) coupled to the high-speed forwarding device and configured to handle network flows using both a fast path and a slow path, wherein the service engine offloads a portion of the network flows to be handled by the high-speed forwarding device, wherein the service engine controls the high-speed forwarding device over a service engine control plane in order to apply a forwarding and network policy to the offloaded portion of network flows handled by the high-speed forwarding device, wherein the service engine is configured to handle network flows using the slow path of the service engine initially for a new network connection until a forwarding decision is made, and wherein the high-speed forwarding device is configured to use an ultra fast path for network flows offloaded from the service engine, wherein the ultra fast path is faster than both the fast path and the slow path of the service engine, and wherein the service engine is configured to use the fast path for one or more of the network flows not offloaded to the high-speed forwarding device once the forwarding decision is made.