The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 12, 2006
Filed:
Jul. 20, 2001
Lebin Cheng, Fremont, CA (US);
Samuel D. Horowitz, Belmont, CA (US);
Brian L. Jemes, Moscow, ID (US);
Lebin Cheng, Fremont, CA (US);
Samuel D. Horowitz, Belmont, CA (US);
Brian L. Jemes, Moscow, ID (US);
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, TX (US);
Abstract
A method is disclosed for processing data using multiple interconnected firewall devices. A connection is initiated between an internal host and an external network, through a home firewall device. A separate, receiving firewall device may then receive a data packet for the internal host as part of a flow. The receiving device attempts to determine the home device for the packet. The receiving device sends a multicast to all other firewall devices in the firewall cluster. The multicast includes the data packet and information about the receiving device. The home device receives the multicast and responds, indicating that it is the home device. The home device extracts the data packet from the multicast and forwards it to the internal host. The receiving device stores the response information along with other forwarding information that is used to automatically forward to the home device subsequent data packets for the flow.