Patent ID: 8130645

Claim:
An application switch comprising: a first I/O interface coupled to a backplane, the first I/O interface configured for receiving one or more packets in a forward flow from a first client device; a plurality of data processors, each data processor communicatively coupled to the first I/O interface via the backplane and configured for operating upon received forward flow packets; a plurality of application processors communicatively coupled to the plurality of data processors via the backplane, the application processors configured for generating a session structure including instructions for processing received forward flow packets; and wherein the first I/O interface is further configured for executing a data processor load balancing algorithm and selecting a target one of the plurality of data processors to process the forward flow packets, wherein the selected data processor is further configured for executing an application processor load balancing algorithm and selecting one of the plurality of application processors to generate the session structure, and the selected application processor is further configured for transferring the session structure to the selected target data processor for processing the forward flow packets.