Patent ID: 7890636

Claim:
A method for allowing a network application to be stateless in an IP network, the method comprising: receiving, at the network application in a network device, state information for a session for a user device, wherein the state information comprises a service route header and identification information for the user device; sending, from the network device, the state information to a user-plane application through a network interface coupled to the network device, wherein the user-plane application comprises a gateway configured to route communications for the user device, the user-plane application being located in a network associated with the user device on an opposite side of the network interface from the network device, and wherein the user-plane application is configured to store the state information in a cache having the service route header associated with the user device identification information, and perform a stateful operation for the network application using the stored state information to offload the stateful operation from the network application of the network device to allow the network application to be stateless with respect to the offloaded stateful operation; when the stateful operation is a security operation: receiving in the network device, a message from the user device; generating security information based on the received message; and communicating with the user-plane application to have a crypto pointer allocated by the user-plane application for the security information, wherein the crypto pointer is stored in the cache associated with the user-plane application; and upon a failure of the network application that causes the network device to lose the state information and the crypto pointer, and re-initialization of the network application in the network device after the failure, communicating with the user-plane application to receive the state information and the crypto pointer from the cache associated with the user-plane application for continuing the session with the re-initialized network application without needing to establish a new session for the user device.