Patent ID: 11874845
Assignee: FORTINET, INC.
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 13:
14. A system with a centralized state engine on a security device of a distributed security environment having a plurality of packet processing devices communicatively coupled to a data communication network, the system comprising:
a processing resource; and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium, coupled to the processing resource, having stored therein instructions that when executed by the processing resource cause the processing resource to:
facilitate decoupling of state storage from packet processing by maintaining in a database associated with the distributed security environment, state information for each of a plurality of end-to-end packet flows,
wherein the state information for a particular end-to-end packet flow of the plurality of end-to-end packet flows influences how a packet associated with the particular end-to-end packet flow is processed by the plurality of packet processing devices,
wherein the state information further comprises security state information from an IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) representing progress of packet security scanning as reported by a plurality of packet processing devices participating in the distributed security environment over the data communication network and which operate at different times as state producers or state consumers,
wherein the state information associated with the packet is created responsive to receiving the state information associated with the packet from at least two packet processing devices of the plurality of packet processing devices, each packet processing device providing, in the state information, metadata information representing one or more packet processing actions performed upstream in the particular end-to-end packet flow by the packet processing device,
wherein the state information for the packet indicates that no further scanning is necessary responsive to the security state information indicative of a completed IPS scan;
receive from a first packet processing device of the plurality of packet processing devices an update pertaining to the state information for the particular end-to-end packet flow of the plurality of end-to-end packet flows;
responsive to receipt of the update: modifying the database to reflect the update; and
pushing the update to a second packet processing device of the plurality of packet processing devices.