FIREWALL NETWORK APPLICATION APPARATUS

A method and system for distributing flows between a multiple processors. The flows can be received from an external source such as a network, by a front-end processor that recognizes the flow and the associated request, and identifies at least one internal applications processor to process the request/flow. The front-end processor utilizes a flow scheduling vector related to the identified applications processor(s), and the flow scheduling vector can be based on intrinsic data from the applications processor(s) that can include CPU utilization, memory utilization, packet loss, and queue length or buffer occupation. In some embodiments, applications processors can be understood to belong to a group, wherein applications processors within a group can be configured identically. A flow schedule vector can be computed for the different applications processor groups.