TRANSPARENT FLOW BASED APPLICATION NAVIGATOR

摘要

In one embodiment, a network frame is received at flow aware navigator between a client computer and a server computer. The flow aware navigator is configured to determine whether the network frame should be forwarded to one or more network services for processing before forwarding the network frame to the server computer. If the flow aware navigator determines that the network frame should be forwarded to one or more network services for processing before forwarding the network frame to the server computer, the flow aware navigator forwards the network frame to the one or more network services for processing. In response to receiving the processed network frame from the network services, the flow aware navigator then forwards the processed network frame to the server computer.

主权项

1. A data processing apparatus, comprising:
one or more electronic digital processors; a switching system coupled to the one or more processors and configured to receive network frames on ingress interfaces and to route or forward the network frames on one or more selected egress interfaces; a flow database coupled to the one or more electronic digital processors configured to store one or more entries, wherein each entry identifies one or more network connections and one or more first network services; a network channel response unit coupled to the one or more processors and comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing one or more sequences of instruction which when executed cause the one or more processors to perform: receiving a particular network frame from a client computer directed toward a server computer; extracting, from the network frame, information that identifies a first network connection associated with the client computer and the server computer; determining, from the flow database, whether the information that identifies the first network connection matches a first entry in the flow database; in response to determining that the information that identifies the first network connection does match the first entry in the flow database, identifying, from the first entry, one or more of the first network services; forwarding the particular network frame to the one or more first network services, without forwarding the particular network frame toward the server computer, and receiving one or more processed network frames from the one or more first network services in response; after receiving all of the one or more processed network frames, forwarding the processed network frames toward the server computer.