Patent ID: 8743871

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, over a first network, at a switching device having a first Internet Protocol (IP) address, an IP data packet that was processed by a first digital signal processor (DSP) that has a second IP address that differs from the first IP address; determining, at the switching device, a destination to which the IP data packet is to be delivered; sending the IP data packet from the switching device over a second network to a second DSP that is mapped to the destination and that has a third IP address that differs from the first and second IP addresses; receiving, at the switching device, from the first DSP, a request to establish a communication session with the second DSP; negotiating, in response to the request, communication session parameters with the first DSP and the second DSP; and storing, at the switching device, a mapping that maps a particular packet flow to the first DSP and the second DSP said mapping indicating that the negotiated communication session parameters are to be used for IP packets belonging to the particular packet flow.