Patent attributes
A method and system is directed to routing a flow of packets over a network to multiple traffic management devices. An apparatus receives each packet from a network and forwards the packet to one of a group of traffic management devices. The apparatus also may receive packets from servers for which the traffic management devices are managing communications. When forwarding packets, a traffic management device is selected from the group of traffic management devices by employing a hash of an IP address and port number. The IP address and port number are selected from source or destination information in the packet that has a greater port number. When the traffic management device performs a network address translation, further actions may be performed so that packets that are part of a flow between two network devices are delivered to the same traffic management device.