Patent ID: 8248928

Claim:
A network monitoring device, comprising: an ingress port, for receiving a plurality of mirrored network packets; plurality of egress ports, associated with a plurality of monitoring servers of a plurality of distinct monitoring groups; a packet classifier, coupled to said ingress port for load-balancing said plurality of mirrored network packets across said plurality of monitoring servers of said plurality of distinct monitoring groups, by forwarding respective mirrored network packets to respective egress ports corresponding to respective said monitoring servers of said plurality of distinct monitoring groups based on a plurality of parameters contained in a network packet header of said respective mirrored network packets, wherein said plurality of parameters include a destination port protocol parameter that expressly identifies a protocol; and associating said plurality of distinct monitoring groups with a networking protocol, wherein said examining comprises determining a networking protocol for each of said packets, and wherein said selecting comprises selecting said destination server such that said plurality of packets are forwarded by protocol to said plurality of distinct monitoring groups.