Patent ID: 8446916

Claim:
A method comprising: identifying, by the device, a data flow associated with a data unit; determining, by the device, that a memory, of the device, includes an entry corresponding to the data flow, the memory storing information identifying one or more data flows, and the entry identifying a first output port, of a plurality of output ports of the device, assigned to the data flow; determining, by the device and based on the entry, an average bandwidth of the data flow after determining that the memory includes the entry corresponding to the data flow; assigning, by the device, the data flow to a second output port, of the plurality of output ports, different than the first output port when: the average bandwidth of the data flow exceeds a threshold, and a speed of the second output port is higher than a speed of the first output port; and modifying, by the device, the entry with information that identifies the second output port based on assigning the data flow to the second output port.