US Patent 11502941 Techniques for routing data in a network

A router in a switching network has input interfaces communicatively coupled to other routers and first and second output interfaces communicatively coupled to other routers in the switching network. First and second output interface queues, respectively associated with the first and second output interfaces, store data packets awaiting transmission respectively on the first and second output interfaces. A routing table maps first and second destination addresses to the first output interface as a primary interface and maps the first destination address to the second output interface as an alternate interface. A route controller assigns, using the routing table, data packets having one of the first or second destination address to the primary output interface for transmission, the primary output interface being the first output interface. The controller monitors the first output interface queue and determines whether to activate an alternate route for transmitting data packets having the first destination address over the switching network.