Patent attributes
Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for forwarding traffic to clusters of nodes. A system can group nodes in a network fabric into a cluster of nodes, and generate respective hash buckets in the network fabric for the nodes, each respective hash bucket being generated based on a hash function applied to a subset of packet header fields. Next, the system receives a packet associated with a service provided by a node in the cluster, and assigns the packet to a hash bucket from the respective hash buckets based on a comparison of a hash value associated with the packet and hash values associated with the respective hash buckets. The system then selects a node in the cluster to service the packet, the node being selected based on the hash bucket assigned to the packet, the hash bucket being associated with the node.
