US Patent 9722932 Packet path selection using shuffle sharding

A path selector device of a network receives a network packet. A packet flow category to which the packet belongs is identified. A candidate outbound link set corresponding to the packet flow category, comprising a subset of the available outbound links of the path selector device, is determined. The packet is transmitted on a particular outbound link of the candidate outbound link set. Subsequent packets of the packet flow category are distributed among the members of the candidate outbound link set.