Importance

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Abstract

Methods and systems for balancing load among firewall security devices (FSDs) are provided. According to one embodiment, service group and VLAN associations are stored within a switching device for each front panel port and for each fabric slot of the switching device. Each of multiple FSDs providing security services for a protected network are coupled with a fabric slot. When a packet is received, the switching device: (i) tags the packet based on a VLAN ID corresponding to the VLAN to which front panel port on which it was received is assigned; (ii) identifies the service group based on the VLAN ID; (iii) selects a slot within the identified service group and thereby selects an FSD to associate with the forward traffic session and a corresponding reverse traffic session by performing a load balancing function on the packet; and (iv) causes the packet to be processed by the selected FSD.

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First Claim