Patent ID: 7254114
Filing Date: 2007-08-07
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A network device comprising: a set of one or more interface cards to collect packets from a network; a set of one or more accounting modules to generate flow statistics for the packets; and a control unit to generate a first and second duplicate streams of the packets received by the interface cards, wherein the control unit distributes the packets of the first duplicate stream to the accounting modules for calculation of flow statistics, and wherein, simultaneous with the calculation of the flow statistics, the control unit intercepts at least a subset of the packets of the second duplicate stream for selected packet flows and forwards the intercepted packets to a packet analyzer, wherein the control unit applies an intercept filter to the second duplicate stream to select the subset of the network packets, and wherein the intercept filter defines a set of traffic flows, and wherein the control unit applies the intercept filter to identify network packets associated with the set of traffic flows.