Patent ID: 7979577

Claim:
A multi-homed endpoint comprising: a plurality of network interfaces having respective Internet Protocol (IP) source addresses, each network interface configured for establishing a connection with a multi-homed peer endpoint via an IP network for transmission of data from the multi-homed endpoint to the multi-homed peer endpoint via the IP network; a first executable resource configured for identifying source-destination address pairs available between the IP source addresses and IP destination addresses available for reaching the multi-homed peer endpoint via the IP network, the first executable resource configured for initiating, for each source-destination address pair, a metric for identifying successful data transfer between the corresponding IP source address of the multi-homed endpoint and the corresponding IP destination address of the multi-homed peer endpoint; and a selection resource configured for identifying one of the source-destination address pairs having the corresponding metric indicating a highest successful data transfer relative to the other source-destination pairs, the selection resource configured for selecting the network interface having the IP source address associated with the identified one source-destination address pair, for transmission of a message to the multi-homed peer endpoint; wherein the first executable resource is configured for initiating a counter for each source-destination address pair, the first executable resource configured for: incrementing the counter for a corresponding source-destination address pair in response to a determined absence of an acknowledgement within a prescribed time interval of sending a data frame via the corresponding source-destination address pair; and decrementing the counter for a corresponding source-destination address pair, until reaching a zero value, in response to each acknowledgement detected within the corresponding prescribed time interval.