For example, a particular client 252 requesting the virtual service may send a TCP SYN packet through network 254 to network layer 255. Network layer 255 routes the TCP SYN packet to a service engine that is part of the scale out set for the virtual service, such as service engine 214. Service engine 214 performs TCP handshaking with the client 252 sending the TCP SYN packet. More specifically, service engine 214 responds to client 252 with an acknowledgement packet, known as a TCP SYN-ACK packet. Upon receiving the TCP SYN-ACK packet, client 252 replies to service engine 214 with a TCP ACK packet, another acknowledgment packet. This process completes the handshaking. Following successful completion of handshaking, a connection between the client 252 and service engine 214 for the virtual service is established. The established connection, or flow, may be identified by the combination of the IP address of client 252, port number for client 252, IP address of the virtual service being requested, port number of the virtual service being requested and protocol used. In other embodiments, another mechanism for identifying the flows might be employed. A binding has also been established between service engine 214 that is part of the scale out set and the corresponding virtual service. Thus, packets received from client 252 that are part of the flow are sent by service engine 214 to the corresponding virtual service.