Patent ID: 8432788

Claim:
A method for failing back network connections to a network interface card (NIC) within a computing device, the method comprising: monitoring a failed or unreliable NIC within the computing device; determining that the failed or unreliable NIC has recovered; determining that a functional NIC within the computing device is overloaded; selecting a first connection set communicating through the overloaded NIC; querying a host software stack to determine that each connection in the first set of connections initially communicated through the recovered NIC prior to communicating through the overloaded NIC; transferring the first connection set to the recovered NIC; removing a MAC address associated with the recovered NIC from a multicast list associated with the overloaded NIC, wherein, once the MAC address associated with the recovered NIC is removed from the multicast list, the overloaded NIC no longer receives packets that are transmitted to the MAC address associated with the recovered NIC; intercepting a first packet transmitted by an operating system to a remote device via at least one connection in the first connection set; modifying a source media access control (MAC) address included in the intercepted packet that specifies a MAC address associated with the overloaded NIC to specify a MAC address associated with the recovered NIC; and offloading at least one connection in the first connection set to a hardware offload engine associated with the recovered NIC; wherein the step of transferring the first connection comprises the step of transmitting a learning packet to a network switch through the recovered NIC.