Patent ID: 7664119

Claim:
A method to perform routing in a network, comprising: receiving a packet to be routed to a destination and a request for advanced routing information at a hosted advanced routing server from an intermediate node configured to perform basic routing services for said packet, said hosted advanced routing server configured to perform advanced routing services required to route said packet to said destination which are not included in said basic routing services; determining a packet classification for said packet, said packet classification representing control information used to identify one of multiple routing tables, with said identified routing table having a destination address, multiple routing paths for a next hop corresponding to said destination address, and a cost based on a hop count associated with each of said multiple routing paths, said identified routing table implementing a dynamic routing protocol to receive periodic or aperiodic updates to said multiple routing paths and associated costs for each of said multiple routing paths; selecting one of said multiple routing paths as a next hop for said packet having a lower cost than another one of said multiple routing paths; retrieving advanced routing information corresponding to said packet classification for said selected next hop; and routing said packet to said destination using said advanced routing information.