 L7 load balancing and firewall functions based on the protocol data that it obtains from the socket buffers. It can synthesize the protocol data and various other signals with the policy information acquired from Pilot to implement a highly efficient form of routing and access control enforcement. It can essentially &ldquo;influence&rdquo; the application to connect to the right backend server without requiring any changes to the application or its configuration. It is as if the application itself is infus