Patent ID: 7409706

Claim:
A system for providing path protection for computer network traffic, comprising: a first outer load balancer operable to handle a first portion of network traffic from an external network; a second outer load balancer operable to handle a second portion of the network traffic from the external network; a first inner load balancer operable to provide the first portion of the network traffic to an inside network, wherein the first portion of the network traffic from the external network has only odd numbered source addresses and the second portion of the network traffic from the external network has only even numbered source addresses; a second inner load balancer operable to provide the second portion of the network traffic from the external network to the inside network; a first group of firewalls operable to provide secured routing of network traffic only from the first outer load balancer to the first inner load balancer; a second group of firewalls operable to provide secured routing of network traffic only from the second outer load balancer to the second inner load balancer; each of the inner and outer load balancers operable to individually detect a firewall failure in the respective first and second groups of firewalls; wherein the first and second outer load balancers are operable to send probes to the respective first and second inner load balancers, the first and second outer load balancers operable to determine an operating state of the first and second inner load balancers in response to the probes.