Hardware and software router

A method for forwarding network traffic by a network router comprising a hardware data plane, a software data plane, and a flow analyzer, the method comprising:

• processing, by the hardware data plane of the networking router, a first incoming packet by routing the first incoming packet with a routing table of the hardware data plane;
• processing, by the software data plane of the networking router, a second incoming packet by routing the second incoming packet with a routing table of the software data plane, wherein the second incoming packet is processed while the first incoming packet is being processed;
• determining that the processing of the first incoming packet by the hardware data plane of the networking router has failed;
• in response to determining that the processing of the first incoming packet by the hardware data plane has failed, subsequently processing, by the software data plane of the networking router, the first incoming packet by routing the first incoming packet with the routing table of the software data plane;
• delivering, from the software data plane and the hardware data plane, network traffic flow information to a flow analyzer of the networking router;
• analyzing, by the flow analyzer of the networking router, the network traffic flow information;
• updating, by the flow analyzer of the networking router, at least one of the routing table of the hardware data plane and the routing table of the software data plane based at least on the analyzed network traffic flow information;
• and
• dynamically configure processing loads by the hardware and software data planes.

A communication network comprising:

• at least one network router;
• at least one network switch;
• two or more computing-based devices;
• wherein the at least one network router comprises:
• at least one processor;
• a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, implement a software data plane and a flow analyzer;
• and
• circuitry configured to implement a hardware data plane;
• the networking router configured to perform operations comprising:
• processing, by the hardware data plane of the networking router, a first incoming packet by routing the first incoming packet with a routing table of the hardware data plane;
• processing, by the software data plane of the networking router, a second incoming packet by routing the second incoming packet with a routing table of the software data plane, wherein the second incoming packet is processed while the first incoming packet is being processed;
• determining that the processing of the first incoming packet by the hardware data plane of the networking router has failed;
• in response to determining that the processing of the first incoming packet by the hardware data plane has failed, subsequently processing, by the software data plane of the networking router, the first incoming packet by routing the first incoming packet with the routing table of the software data plane;
• delivering, from the software data plane and the hardware data plane, network traffic flow information to a flow analyzer of the networking router;
• analyzing, by the flow analyzer of the networking router, the network traffic flow information;
• updating, by the flow analyzer of the networking router, at least one of the routing table of the hardware data plane and the routing table of the software data plane based at least on the analyzed network traffic flow information such that only routes with a network traffic flow above a threshold, as determined by analyzing the network traffic flow information, are assigned to be initially processed by the hardware data plane;
• and
• dynamically configuring processing loads by the hardware and software data planes;
• wherein the threshold is determined by optimizing the processing loads of the hardware and software data planes.