REGIONAL FIREWALL CLUSTERING IN A NETWORKED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

摘要

An approach for regional firewall clustering for optimal state-sharing of different sites in a virtualized/networked (e.g.,cloud) computing environment is provided. In a typical embodiment, each firewall in a given region is informed of its peer firewalls via a registration process with a centralized server. Each firewall opens up an Internet protocol (IP)-based communication channel to each of its peers in the region to share state table information. This allows for asymmetrical firewall flows through the network and allows routing protocols to ascertain the best path to a given destination without having to take firewall placement into consideration.