Patent ID: 8745266

Claim:
A method of providing by an intermediary device access to a service deployed in parallel to the intermediary device, the method comprising: (a) receiving, by an intermediary device deployed between a plurality of clients and one or more servers, a request from a client to access a server via a first transport layer connection; (b) determining, by the intermediary device responsive to applying a single sign on service policy to content of the request, that the request is to be processed by a service provided by a single sign on service provided by a second device, the second device deployed in parallel to the intermediary device; (c) forwarding, by the intermediary device, the request via a second transport layer connection to the second device for processing by the firewall service, the request modified by the intermediary device to change a Media Access Control (MAC) address of a destination of the request to a MAC address of the second device; (d) receiving, by the intermediary device, a response to processing the request from the single sign on service of the second device; (e) identifying, by the intermediary device, that the response is from the second device via one or more properties of a transport layer connection carrying the response; and (f) continue processing, by the intermediary device, the request responsive to receiving the response from the second device.