Method and system for providing efficient receive network traffic distribution that balances the load in multi-core processor systems

A computer system for providing efficient received network traffic distribution in a computing device, the system comprising:

• a memory subsystem;
• a processor subsystem in communication with the memory subsystem, the processor subsystem comprising a plurality of cores;
• and
• a classification subsystem in communication with the memory subsystem and the processor subsystem, the classification subsystem including a hardware classification engine configured to:
• receive a data packet comprising a portion of a received network traffic data flow;
• identify packet information from the data packet;
• determine, based in part on the packet information, whether any of the plurality of cores of the processor subsystem is assigned to the received data flow;
• responsive to the determination that none of the plurality of cores is assigned to the data flow, assign a first core of the plurality of cores to the data flow;
• and
• send the data packet to the first core.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement a method for improved received network traffic distribution in a multi-core computing device, the method comprising:

• receiving at a hardware classification engine of the computing device a data packet, the data packet comprising a portion of a received network traffic data flow;
• identifying packet information from the data packet;
• determining with the classification engine, based in part on the packet information, whether a core of a multi-core processor subsystem is assigned to the data flow of which the packet is a part;
• responsive to the determination that a core is not assigned to the data flow, assigning a first core of the multi-core processor to the data flow;
• and
• sending the data packet to the first core for processing.

A computer system for providing efficient received network traffic distribution in a computing device, the system comprising:

• means for receiving at a hardware classification engine of the computing device a data packet, the data packet comprising a portion of a received network traffic data flow;
• means for identifying packet information from the data packet;
• means for determining with the classification engine, based in part on the packet information, whether a core of a multi-core processor subsystem is assigned to the data flow of which the packet is a part;
• means responsive to the determination that a core is not assigned to the data flow for assigning a first core of the multi-core processor to the data flow;
• and
• means for sending the data packet to the first core for processing.