Patent ID: 7716364

Claim:
A method of distributing a datagram over a network, the method comprising: receiving a datagram through an ingress of a datagram distribution device; referencing, based on a first attribute of the datagram, a first instruction from a first set of instructions from a memory unit to select an initial subset of instructions from a second set of instructions included in the memory unit; selecting the initial subset of instructions from the second set of instructions based on the first instruction and a second attribute of the datagram, the initial subset of instructions indicating an egress through which the datagram should be sent and a reference to another subset of instructions; if the reference to the another subset of instructions refers to a subset of instructions other than the subset which included the reference, selecting another subset of instructions based on the reference included in the initial subset, the another subset of instructions indicating another egress through which the datagram should be sent and a reference to another subset of instructions, and continuing to select another subset of instructions based on the reference until the reference refers back to the same subset which includes the reference; and transmitting replications of the datagram through the indicated egresses based on the selected subsets of instructions.