Patent ID: 7743155

Claim:
A method of load distribution for a cluster of two or more virtual private network devices comprising: receiving an initial request from a network device; forwarding the request from the network device to a cluster of at least two virtual private network devices, the cluster of at least two virtual private network devices having a virtual IP address, and wherein each of the at least two virtual private network devices has a dispatcher module and a unique and non-conflicting IP address; establishing one of the dispatch modules on the at least two virtual private network devices as a priority dispatcher, and wherein the priority dispatcher distributes load among the cluster of at least two virtual private network devices; dispatching the request to one of the virtual private network devices associated with the cluster; processing the request on one of the virtual private network devices associated with the cluster; forwarding the request to a switching device or bridging device, which forwards the request to a secure remote private network associated with the at least two virtual private network devices; synchronizing each of the virtual private network devices, using an IP and interface designated for synchronization and wherein for each group of the identical virtual services (hosted on individual cluster units), a dispatcher virtual IP address (VIP) tied to a cluster group is configured on each virtual private network device, which represents the entire group of internal virtual services; when a new user is authenticated and a session is created and/or updated in one virtual private network device, the virtual private network device updates other virtual private network devices and synchronizes session tables in all virtual private network devices; and wherein the dispatcher module is a TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) based load balancer, which enables creating an active-active cluster of two or more virtual private network devices without requiring an external load balancer.