Patent ID: 7929443

Claim:
A method for providing improved performance in a networking device, comprising: intercepting a first session control message at said networking device, said first session control message sent from a session originator to a session destination, wherein said networking device is located between said session originator and said session destination; interpreting said first session control message at said networking device; allocating at least one resource in said networking device for use in processing received data packets associated with a communication session, wherein said allocating includes a first phase performed in response to said intercepting said first session control message and said interpreting said first session control message, in which a determination is made that said at least one resource in said networking device is available to support said communication session and said first session control message is modified to reflect availability of said at least one resource at said networking device and said modified first session control message is forwarded to a next networking device on the way to said session destination, and a second phase in which a second session control message is received from said next networking device, said second session control message indicating that there are sufficient end to end network resources between said session originator and said session destination available for and committed to said communication session, said second session control message traversing back to said session originator from said session destination; monitoring activity of said communication session at ingress and egress ports of said networking device; and responsive to detecting sufficient inactivity of said communication session at said ingress and egress ports of said networking device, cleaning up said communication session by sending a tear-down message from said networking device to a host computer system comprising one of the set consisting of said session originator and said session destination, said tear-down message causing all other networking devices located between said networking device and said host computer system to remove said communication session from their internal configurations, and wherein said tear-down message is consumed by an edge networking device connected to said host computer system to prevent transmission of said tear-down message to said host computer system.