PACKET PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR LOAD BALANCING OF MULTI-LAYERED PROTOCOLS

There are provided a packet processing apparatus and method for enabling an interface server connected to an external interface to set up a list of multi-layered protocols for processing a received packet and to control all service servers to distributively process the loads of the multi-layered protocols. The packet processing apparatus includes: an interface server configured to set up, if a packet is received from an external node, an execution order of protocols with respect to the received packet, and to edit the packet such that the packet includes information about the execution order of the protocols; a plurality of service servers configured to process the packet according to the corresponding protocols in the execution order of the protocols; and a switch configured to transfer the packet between the interface server and the plurality of service servers.