| 主权项 |
1. A method for balancing load among firewall security devices in a network, the method comprising:
causing, by a switching device on the network, a plurality of firewall security devices arranged in one or more clusters on the network to enter into a load balancing mode by sending one or more control messages to the plurality of firewall security devices; receiving, by the switching device, heartbeat signals from the plurality of firewall security devices; including, by the switching device, information regarding the plurality of firewall security devices into a load balancing table; configuring a load balancing function in the switching device based on information received from a network administrator indicative of (i) a number of bits to be used as an input to the load balancing function and (ii) bit positions of the number of bits within one or more of a packet type, a source port, a destination port, a source address and a destination address of packets to be load balanced, wherein the number of bits may be fewer than that of the source address or the destination address, wherein the bit positions are not limited to being contiguous and wherein the load balancing function enables the switching device to manage more than eight firewall security devices in a cluster; receiving, by the switching device, a data packet from one or more client devices; and forwarding, by the switching device, the data packet to a firewall security device of the plurality of firewall security devices based on the load balancing function. |
