Active-active operation for a cluster of SSL virtual private network (VPN) devices with load distribution

A method of load distribution for a cluster of two or more nodes comprises:

• receiving an initial request packet on a network device;
• forwarding the request packet from the network device to a cluster of at least two virtual private network devices, the cluster of at least two virtual private network devices having a virtual IP address, and wherein each of the at least two virtual private network devices has a dispatcher module including at least one dispatcher endpoint per group of virtual sites and unique and non-conflicting IP addresses for all virtual sites;
• establishing one of the at least two virtual private network devices as a priority dispatcher, and wherein the priority dispatcher distributes load among the cluster of at least two virtual private network devices, and wherein if any one virtual private network device fails, the virtual IP address of the cluster of virtual private network devices falls back to another virtual private network device within the cluster based on cluster priorities;
• dispatching the request packet to one of the virtual private network devices associated with the cluster;
• processing the request on one of the virtual private network devices associated with the cluster;
• synchronizing each of the virtual private network devices, using an IP and interface designated for synchronization and wherein for each group of the identical virtual services (hosted on individual cluster units), a dispatcher virtual IP address (VIP) tied to a cluster group is configured on each virtual private network device, which represents the entire group of internal virtual services;
• when a new user is authenticated and a session is created and/or updated in one virtual private network device, the virtual private network device us dates other virtual private network devices, and synchronizes session tables in all virtual private network devices;
• and
• wherein the dispatcher module is a TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) based load balancer, which enables creating an active-active cluster of two or more virtual private network devices without requiring an external load balancer.