Patent ID: 8005000

Claim:
A system comprising: a network device configured to: perform an initial inspection of a received packet by analyzing a header of the received packet to locate a particular Uniform Resource Locator (URL) in the header, and if the particular URL is present, compare the particular URL to stored associations between URLs and a plurality of applications operating on at least one remote endpoint; if the particular URL is not present in the header, perform a subsequent inspection of the received packet by analyzing a payload of the received packet, the payload being data encapsulated by the header; based on the initial inspection or the subsequent inspection, correlate the received packet to a particular one of the plurality of applications operating on the at least one remote endpoint according to the initial inspection or the subsequent inspection; after the correlation, insert a data pattern into the payload, wherein the data pattern stores the correlation between the particular one of the applications and the packet; and forward the received packet having the data pattern inserted therein.