Patent ID: 8756602

Claim:
A network device comprising: at least one local network port for connection to a first local area network containing a first virtual machine to be migrated from a first server; at least one wide area network port for connection to a wide area network to provide the first virtual machine to a second server connected to a second local area network; a local termination module coupled to said at least one local network port to locally terminate a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) session with the first server for migrating the first virtual machine and to establish a session with a remote termination module of a remote network device, the remote termination module locally terminating a TCP session with the second server; a caching module coupled to said local termination module for caching data relating to the first virtual machine; a data compaction engine coupled to said caching module to reduce the size of data relating to the first virtual machine; and a transmission module coupled to said data compaction engine and to said at least one wide area network port for providing data relating to the first virtual machine to the wide area network, wherein the remote network device further comprises a remote caching module, a remote data compaction engine and a remote transmission module, wherein said local termination module, said caching module, said data compaction engine, said transmission module, the remote termination module, the remote caching module, the remote data compaction engine and the remote transmission module cooperate to migrate the first virtual machine from the first server to the second server over the wide area network without migration timeouts at either of the first or second servers by establishing a session between said local termination module and the remote termination module and migrating the first virtual machine via the session.