Patent ID: 9413718
Filing Date: 2016-08-09
CPC Classification: G06F,H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method comprising: providing a network switching device within a private Internet Protocol (IP) network that is configured to distribute traffic among a plurality of cluster units of a high availability cluster of firewall security devices within the private IP network; configuring a load balancing function in the network switching device based on information received from a network administrator of the network switching device indicative of (i) a number of bits to be used as an input to the load balancing function and (ii) corresponding contiguous or non-contiguous bit positions within a packet header of packets to be load balanced; directing, by the network switching device, the plurality of cluster units to enter into a load balancing mode by sending one or more control messages to the plurality of cluster units; responsive to receiving, by the network switching device, a heartbeat signal on a port of a plurality of ports of the network switching device from a cluster unit of the plurality of cluster units, including information indicative of a state of the cluster unit within a load balancing table maintained by the network switching device that forms an association between hash values or emulated hash values output by the load balancing function and corresponding ports of the plurality of ports; receiving, by the network switching device, a packet from a client device; and directing, by the network switching device, the packet to an appropriate cluster unit of the plurality of cluster units based on the packet and the load balancing function by: