Patent ID: 8259585

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, with a network device, a packet of a packet flow, wherein the network device is coupled to a plurality of parallel data paths; determining whether the packet is a request to establish a network connection; when the packet is a request to establish a network connection, querying a Bloom filter of the network device with packet flow information of the packet to determine whether the packet flow is a member of the Bloom filter; when the packet flow is not a member of the Bloom filter, selecting a first one of the plurality of parallel data paths with a first hash function and determining whether the first one of the parallel data paths is congested; and when the first one of the parallel data paths is congested, adding the packet flow to the Bloom filter, selecting a second one of the plurality of parallel data paths with a second hash function and forwarding the packet through the selected second one of the parallel data paths.