Patent ID: 7529242

Claim:
A method for routing data packets for network flow analysis by a multi-processor system having a plurality of processors, comprising: receiving a data packet, the data packet comprising data sufficient to identify a network connection with which the data packet is associated; calculating a hash value based on said data sufficient to identify the network connection with which the data packet is associated; and assigning the data packet based on said hash value to one of said plurality of processors for analysis by using a number of bits of the hash value, wherein the number of bits used is not necessarily the total number of bits of the hash value and the number of bits used is determined at least in part by the number of processors included in said plurality of processors; wherein each of at least a subset of processors comprising said plurality of processors is configured to perform concurrently two or more network flow analysis related tasks; wherein the data packet is assigned to said one of said plurality of processors by storing, in a work queue associated with said one of said plurality of processors, a pointer to a storage location in which data comprising the data packet is stored; and the processor is configured to read the pointer, use the pointer to read the data comprising the data packet directly from the storage location in which said data comprising the data packet is stored, use the data comprising the data packet to perform a network flow analysis with respect to a network flow with which the data packet is associated, and store in a return queue associated with the processor a data indicating that the processor is finished processing the data comprising the data packet; and wherein the data indicating that the processor is finished processing the data comprising the data packet is used to determine that the storage location is available to be used to store a subsequently received data comprising a subsequently received data packet; and further comprising reading the pointer from the return queue and using the pointer read from the return queue to add the storage location to a free list of storage locations available to be assigned to a network communication interface configured to receive the subsequently received data packet and to store said subsequently received data comprising the subsequently received data packet.