Patent attributes
Techniques are described for distributing network traffic across parallel data paths. For example, a router may perform a hash on routing information of the packet to generate a hash value corresponding to the packet flow associated with the packet. The router may map the hash value of the packet to a forwarding element associated with a data path. The router may dynamically update the mapping of hash values to forwarding elements in accordance with traffic flow statistics. In this manner, the router may distribute the packet flows from data paths with high volumes of traffic to data paths with smaller volumes of traffic. The router may further prevent out of sequence delivery of packets by updating the mapping upon a gap in the packet flow exceeding a threshold gap. For example, the router may update the mapping when a packet for a packet flow associated with the particular hash value has not been received for at least a defined time interval.
