Patent ID: 8639842

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a plurality of incoming data streams at a gateway, wherein the gateway comprises a dispatch processor coupled to a plurality of sub-processors; load balancing the incoming data streams, wherein the load balancing is performed by the dispatch processor, the load balancing comprises assigning a first data stream of the incoming data streams to a first sub-processor of the plurality of sub-processors, and the assigning comprises identifying a first sub-processor identifier in the first data stream, wherein the first sub-processor identifier is associated with the first sub-processor, and the identifying is performed by the dispatch processor; transforming the first data stream of the incoming data streams, wherein the transforming the first data stream is performed by the first sub-processor, and the transforming the first data stream comprises converting a first mangled address in the first data stream into a standard address; forwarding the first data stream to a first server of a plurality of servers, wherein the forwarding is performed by the first sub-processor, in response to the transforming, and the first server corresponds to the standard address; and responding to the incoming data streams with a plurality of outgoing data streams, wherein each of the outgoing data streams comprises a sub-processor identifier, each of the sub-processor identifiers identifies a respective sub-processor of the plurality of sub-processors, each of the outgoing data streams comprises a respective mangled address, each of the mangled addresses comprises information identifying an address of a corresponding server among the plurality of servers, each of the plurality of servers is coupled to the gateway, each of the mangled addresses indicates an address of the gateway, and the first sub-processor is configured to generate the mangled addresses in the outgoing data streams.