Patent ID: 7532619

Claim:
A packet transfer apparatus comprising: a plurality of general-purpose processors; and a network processor adapted to forward packets belonging to a same session to a same one of said plurality of general-purpose processors, wherein: said network processor includes a session management table containing session management entries, each of which is associated with a session and contains a device ID identifying a destined one of said general-purpose processors to which packets belonging to said associated session are to be forwarded, said network processor is programmed to, upon receiving an incoming packet which requires processing by an arbitrary one of said general-purpose processors, when said session management entries include a validated session management entry associated with a session to which said incoming packet belongs, forward said incoming packet to said destined general-purpose processor identified by said device ID within said validated session management entry, each of said session management entries further contains an entry ID associated with said session, and said network processor is programmed: to determine an entry ID using a hash function with source and destination IP addresses, and source and destination port numbers of said incoming packet used as arguments, and to, when said session management entries include no validated session management entry containing said determined entry ID, prepare another validated session management entry containing said determined entry ID, and a device ID identifying destined general-purpose processor selected out of said general-purpose processors, and to forward said incoming packet to said destined general-purpose processors, to, when said session management entries include a validated session management entry containing said determined entry ID, forward said incoming packet to said destined general-purpose processor identified by said device ID contained in said validated session management entry.