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.