Patent ID: 7657940
Filing Date: 2010-02-02
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: receiving SSL encrypted traffic; transferring said SSL encrypted traffic to an SSL offload device: receiving from said SSL offload device clear text traffic that has been generated by decrypting the SSL encrypted traffic; determining a load balancing decision to determine a destination server from a plurality of servers for the clear text traffic; rewriting, by a network device, said clear text traffic with a real server address for the determined destination server determined by the load balancing decision; rewriting, by the network device, a destination MAC address to a MAC address for the SSL offload device; after the rewriting steps, forwarding said clear text traffic to said SSL offload device for re-encryption using the destination MAC address, wherein the real server address is preserved in the clear traffic; and after the SSL offload device re-encrypts the clear text traffic that includes the real server address, routing said encrypted traffic to said destination server using the real server address.