One embodiment is a method including creating at an ingress node of a communications network a request message identifying a hashing parameter for a network application, and including range of values for the identified hashing parameter to enable load balancing for packets associated with the network application; forwarding the created request message to a node associated with a next hop along a first path through the network between the ingress node and an egress node; and receiving a response message from the node associated with the next hop, wherein the response message includes load balancing information for the node associated with the next hop corresponding to the range of values for the identified hashing parameter.
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