Highly scalable architecture for application network appliances

摘要

A highly scalable application network appliance is described herein. According to one embodiment, a network element includes a switch fabric, a first service module coupled to the switch fabric, and a second service module coupled to the first service module over the switch fabric. In response to packets of a network transaction received from a client over a first network to access a server of a data center having multiple servers over a second network, the first service module is configured to perform a first portion of OSI (open system interconnection) compatible layers of network processes on the packets while the second service module is configured to perform a second portion of the OSI compatible layers of network processes on the packets. The first portion includes at least one OSI compatible layer that is not included in the second portion. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
at a client host machine, sending a data packet from an application server of the client host machine to an agent of the client host machine, wherein the data packet comprises a header with a destination address, a destination port number and a payload; at the client host machine, encrypting the payload of the data packet with an encryption header while maintaining the destination address information of the data packet unencrypted and maintaining the destination port number information of the data packet unencrypted; and at the client host machine, performing a Layer 4 analysis on the data packet.