Patent ID: 7864943

Claim:
A method for load sharing and preserving sequencing of class 1 signaling connection control part (SCCP) messages, the method comprising: at a communications network routing node: (a) receiving a first class 1 SCCP message of a plurality of class 1 SCCP messages relating to a transaction at an inbound interface module in a communications network routing node; (b) assigning a sequence number to the first message; (c) transmitting at least a portion of the first message from the inbound interface module to any one of a plurality of SCCP modules for SCCP processing, where each of the SCCP modules is selected using a load sharing algorithm and where the load sharing algorithm can select different SCCP modules for different class 1 SCCP messages of the plurality of class 1 SCCP messages relating to the same transaction; (d) performing SCCP processing at the SCCP module selected for the first message and returning the at least a portion of the first message to the inbound interface module; and (e) at the inbound interface module, ordering the first message with respect to at least one other SCCP message of the plurality of class 1 SCCP messages relating to the same transaction based on the sequence number and transmitting the SCCP message to an outbound interface in the communications network routing node such that class 1 SCCP messages that are sequentially received at the communications network routing node are load shared, and routed from the communications network routing node in the sequence in which the messages were received, wherein the ordering is performed after SCCP messages have been processed at different SCCP modules in the communications network routing node.