Patent ID: 8780701

Claim:
A communication apparatus, comprising: a high-priority link configured to transmit one or more high-priority packets that have a priority level greater than or equal to a given level; a plurality of low-priority links; a memory which is configured to store link identification information for each of the plurality of low-priority links, a plurality of link priority levels, each of the plurality of link priority levels corresponding to one of the plurality of low-priority links and at least two of the plurality of link priority levels being different from each other, and a plurality of hash values, each of which are represented by a numerical value, each of the plurality of hash values corresponding to one of the plurality of low-priority links, and a processor coupled to the memory and which is configured to: when a failure occurs in the high-priority link, acquire, from the memory, the link identification information of a low-priority link of the plurality of low-priority links, in which the low-priority link has the highest priority level among the plurality of low-priority links, set the low-priority link corresponding to the acquired link identification information as a new high-priority link, delete a hash value corresponding to the new high-priority link from the plurality of hash values, reset the plurality of hash values to make each of the plurality of hash values correspond to one of the plurality of low-priority links except for the new high-priority link, and distribute the one or more high-priority packets to the new high-priority link.