Patent ID: 8510468

Claim:
A method for implementing functionality within a network on behalf of first and second devices communicating with each other through the network comprising: specifying an ordered list of routing events, wherein the ordered list comprises a list of all routing events received after a routing information context was constructed, wherein the routing information context represents a starting topology and a routing state of a routing domain; providing the routing information context; constructing path information between a starting address and a destination address within the network using the routing information context; updating the routing information context in accordance with a next routing event in the ordered list of routing events; repeating the constructing and updating steps above until reaching a last routing event in the ordered list of routing events; and based on the path information between the starting address and the destination address, implementing functionality within the network on behalf of the first and second devices to reduce a number of hops between the first and second devices relative to a number of hops in the path information between the starting address and the destination address by: providing a front-end device within the network having an interface for communicating data traffic with the first device; providing a back-end device within the network having an interface for communicating data traffic with the second device; providing a communication channel coupling the front-end device and the back-end device; encoding data traffic over the communication channel in a first process in the front-end device; encoding data traffic over the communication channel in a second process in the back-end device, decoding the encoded data traffic from the front-end device in a third process in the back-end device; and decoding the encoded data traffic from the back-end device in a fourth process in the front-end device, wherein the first, second, third, and fourth processes implement preselected compatible semantics to perform the encoding and the decoding on the data traffic wherein the preselected compatible semantics comprise processes for sharing operational information for the front-end and back-end computers.