Patent ID: 8792353

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a first set of frames of a first data flow; tagging each frame in the first set of frames with a respective assigned serial number identifying an ordering of frames in the first set of frames; forwarding the tagged first set of frames from a network processor to a general processor for processing prior to the first set of frames being sent to at least one remote network element, wherein the first set of frames comprises a plurality of frames; receiving, at the network processor, following the forwarding of the tagged first set of frames to the general processor, a first data flow policy generated by the general processor based at least in part on processing of at least some frames in the tagged first set of frames, wherein the first data flow policy indicates to the network processor that the first set of frames are to be accelerated using the network processor, and frames in the first data flow received before the first data flow policy are to be first passed to the general processor; receiving a second set of frames of the first data flow subsequent to forwarding the first set of frames to the general processor and receiving the first data flow policy; and verifying, based at least in part on the serial numbers assigned to the first set of frames, that each frame in the first set of frames has been sent to the remote network element prior to sending frames in the second set of frames to the remote network element, wherein the second set of frames are to be accelerated by processing and sending at least the second set of frames to the remote network element using the network processor, bypassing processing by the general processor, based at least in part on the first data flow policy.