US Patent 7814310 IPsec performance optimization

A method and apparatus for optimizing IPsec processing by providing execution units with windowing data during prefetch and managing coherency of security association data by management of security association accesses. Providing execution units with windowing data allows initial parallel processing of IPsec packets. The security association access ordering apparatus serializes access to the dynamic section of security association data according to packet order arrival while otherwise allowing parallel processing of the IPsec packet by multiple execution units in a security processor.