Palo Alto Networks, Inc.
DISTRIBUTED SCANNING

Abstract:

A distributed system of scanning nodes is provided job portions to collectively scan network systems numbering in the tens of thousands and beyond million across the Internet. A scanning controller creates the job portions to fulfill a scanning request. The scanning controller creates the job portions based on availability of scanning nodes and a size of the scanning request (i.e., number of network addresses indicated by the request). The scanning controller creates each job portion with scanning instructions for an available scanning node to execute on a selected set of the network addresses indicated in the request, with each job portion having a different set of addresses to scan and being independently executable.