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US 7,254,834 B2Granted
Fault tolerant firewall sandwiches
AssigneeBoard of Regents of the University of Nebraska
InventorStephen M. Goddard
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Firewall sandwich configurations having improved levels of system availability as well as an application-space implementation of a firewall load balancer (FLB) which provides greater operational flexibility while reducing the need for custom hardware and/or operating system software. Also disclosed is a firewall capable of functionally replacing an FLB upon detecting a failure therein.
Claims14
A system comprising;
- a plurality of firewalls;
- a first FLB for exchanging packets between a first network and the plurality of firewalls;
- a second FLB for exchanging packets between a second network and the plurality of firewalls;
- and
- a first standby FLB configured to:
- detect a failure in the first FLB and functionally replace the first FLB, if a failure in the first FLB is detected;
- and
- detect a failure in the second FLB and functionally replace the second FLB, if a failure in the second FLB is detected.
5 more elements
A system comprising:
- a plurality of firewalls;
- a first FLB for exchanging packets between a first network and the plurality of firewalls;
- and
- a second FLB for exchanging packets between a second network and the plurality of firewalls;
- wherein at least the first FLB is configured to both exchange packets between the first network and the plurality of firewalls, and exchange packets between the second network and the plurality of firewalls, after determining that a failure has occurred in the second FLB.
2 more elements
A system comprising:
- a plurality of firewalls:
- a first FLB for exchanging packets between a first network and the plurality of firewalls:
- and
- a second FLB for exchanging packets between a second network and the plurality of firewalls:
- wherein each of the firewalls execute fault detection software such that each of the firewalls is configured to functionally replace the first FLB after detecting a failure in the first FLB, the fault detection software selecting a firewall from the plurality of firewalls to replace the first FLB.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.