Patent ID: 8688844

Claim:
A method of initiating a connection between transparent network devices, wherein the method is performed by a server-side transparent network device, the method comprising: intercepting a first message from a client device and addressed to a server device, wherein the first message includes a first probe option, wherein the first message is adapted to initiate a first connection between the client device and the server device, and a second connection between a client-side transparent network device and the server-side transparent network device; detecting a presence of the client-side transparent network device based on the first probe option included in the first message; creating a modified version of the first message adapted to continue the initiation of the first connection; sending the modified version of the first message towards the server device; intercepting a second message from the server device and addressed to the client device, wherein the second message is adapted to continue the initiation of the first connection; determining if the second message was previously intercepted by the server-side transparent network device; and in response to the determination that the second message was previously intercepted by the server-side transparent network device, creating a modified version of the second message adapted to continue the initiation of the first connection and the second connection, wherein the modified version of the second message includes a second probe option; and sending the modified version of the second message towards the client device.