Patent ID: 8804739

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a network device, a packet; processing, by the network device, the packet to identify a next hop associated with processing the packet, the packet being processed based on information included in the packet, the next hop including: an address pointer, to a memory of the network device, that identifies a lookup operation, information identifying a destination of the packet, or an address pointer, to the memory, that identifies one or more functions; performing, by the network device, the lookup operation when the next hop includes the address pointer, to the memory of the network device, that identifies the lookup operation; forwarding, by the network device, the packet toward the destination of the packet when the next hop includes the information identifying the destination; and when the next hop includes the address pointer, to the memory, that identifies the one or more functions: executing the one or more functions to obtain a result, and forwarding the packet toward the destination of the packet based on the result, executing the one or more functions including: executing a function to modify a data rate of a flow associated with the packet.