Patent ID: 8793361
Filing Date: 2014-07-29
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. In a network device operative to classify data flows and mirror data flows to cooperating network devices, a method facilitating classification of asymmetric data flows, the method comprising: detecting, at the network device, one or more packets of a data flow originally received at the network device; receiving, at the network device, one or more mirrored packets of the data flow from one or more cooperating network devices; classifying the data flow into a network application of a plurality of network applications, at the network device, by applying one or more classification operations to at least one of the one or more originally received packets and at least one of the one or more mirrored packets of the data flow; mirroring one or more packets of the data flow to the one or more cooperating network devices by transmitting the one or more packets from the network device to the one or more cooperating network devices; and discontinuing the mirroring of packets of the data flow, at the network device, upon termination of the one or more classification operations; wherein the detected packets originally received at the network device, the received mirrored packets from the cooperating network devices received at the network device, and the transmitted mirrored packets to the cooperating device network devices from the network device each correspond to the same data flow.