System and Methods For Scalable Packet Inspection in Cloud Computing

A system for packet inspection in a computer network, comprising:

• a first load balancer configured to receive a plurality of network streams from a plurality of client systems, and to allocate the network streams across a plurality of proxy instances;
• the proxy instances configured to:
• inspect and filter the network streams;
• forward the filtered network streams to a second load balancer;
• inspect and filter responses to the network streams;
• and
• forward the filtered response to the client systems;
• the second load balancer configured to allocate the filtered network streams to a plurality of application instances;
• and
• the application instances configured to process and respond to the network streams.

A system for packet inspection in a computer network, comprising:

• a first load balancer configured to allocate a plurality of network streams across a plurality of proxy instances;
• a second load balancer configured to allocate the filtered network streams to a plurality of application instances;
• the proxy instances configured to:
• inspect and filter the network streams;
• forward the filtered network streams to the second load balancer;
• inspect and filter responses to the network streams;
• and
• forward the filtered response to the client systems;
• the application instances configured to:
• process and respond to the network streams;
• and
• originate a second data stream to obtain data from an external host;
• a Network Address Translation instance configured to:
• inspect and filter the second data stream;
• forward the filtered second data stream to the external host;
• receive a response from the external host;
• and
• inspect, filter, and forward the response to the originating application instance.