Patent ID: 7770215

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: an outbound firewall load balancer that is operable to receive a packet and to determine whether the packet is associated with an open connection such that resources are being consumed as reflected by an entry in an outbound connection database, wherein if the entry is not present in the outbound connection database then a new entry is not recorded for the outbound firewall load balancer, and wherein the packet is forwarded to a selected one of a plurality of firewalls coupled to the outbound firewall load balancer in the case where the entry is present in the outbound connection database, the packet being received by the selected firewall and then communicated to an inbound firewall load balancer, the inbound firewall load balancer being further operable to generate a new entry for the packet once it has received it from the selected firewall, the new entry being provided in an inbound connection database such that resources for the inbound firewall load balancer are then being consumed for an open flow associated with the packet.