Network architectures for content-based routing

In this paper we present various network architectures for an intelligent content-based router that examines the data in a packet, and then routes the packet to a destination where it can be most quickly, cheaply, and efficiently processed. Before forwarding packets to their respective destinations, the router uses the data in each packet and the network state to determine a suitable destination address that can optimize processing of the packet. Thus, a packet may be redirected to a different destination address than was originally specified. This approach can be used to improve network bandwidth utilization by replicating network services (e.g., Web servers) and doing in-network selection of the "optimal" replica to use for a particular packet/request.