Abstract: A distributed virtual appliance is disclosed, including: allocating network traffic to a plurality of compute units implementing a network service associated with the distributed virtual appliance; and dynamically adding or removing one or more compute units implementing the network service without disruption to the network traffic.

Abstract: A distributed virtual appliance is disclosed, including: determining a classification type associated with the first flow; and determining an allocation of the first flow to the first data plane compute unit of the distributed virtual appliance based at least in part on the determined classification type and at least a subset of information of a first flow identifier, wherein the distributed virtual appliance includes a plurality of compute units, including the first data plane compute.

Abstract: Providing a shared interface among a plurality of compute units is disclosed. A plurality of compute units is determined and a shared interface for the plurality of compute units is provided, wherein incoming traffic is received by any of the plurality of compute units. Also, the packet is received at the shared interface for a plurality of compute units. The packet is encapsulated using a first header, wherein the first header specifies one of the plurality of compute units, and wherein the one of the plurality of compute units is selected independent of an interface address associated with the shared interface.

Abstract: A distributed virtual appliance is disclosed, including: allocating network traffic to a plurality of compute units implementing a network service associated with the distributed virtual appliance; and dynamically adding or removing one or more compute units implementing the network service without disruption to the network traffic.