Patent ID: 7672236

Claim:
An application switch comprising: a first I/O interface coupled to a backplane, the first I/O interface configured for receiving one or more packets in a forward flow from a first client device; a plurality of data processors, each data processor communicatively coupled to the first I/O interface via the backplane and configured for operating upon received forward flow packets; an application processor communicatively coupled to the plurality of data processors via the backplane, the application processor configured for generating a session structure including instructions for processing received forward flow packets; and wherein the first I/O interface is further configured for executing a data processor load balancing algorithm and selecting a target one of the plurality of data processors to process the forward flow packets, and the application processor is further configured for transferring the session structure to the selected target data processor for processing the forward flow packets; and the application data processor is configured for performing a predictive offload algorithm relating to reverse flow packets from a second client device, the predictive offload algorithm including executing the data processor load balancing algorithm and determining a one of the plurality of data processors that will process the reverse flow packets, and when the determined data processor is different from the target data processor, either the forward flow packets are forwarded to the determined data processor for processing or the reverse flow packets are forwarded to the target data processor for processing.