Patent ID: 7882554

Claim:
An apparatus to facilitate selective mirroring, comprising: a port included in a set of at least one port, wherein each of said set of at least one port receives input traffic; a data processor that processes input data from said set of at least one port to generate mirrored data, based on rules with bitwise granularity across a header and a payload of said input data; and a mirror port selectable from said set of at least one port that transmits output traffic corresponding to said mirrored data; wherein said rules include signature-based rules that match incoming bits with a selected pattern of bits; and wherein said data processor comprises: a plurality of microcode controlled state machines, each of said plurality of microcode controlled state machines including a computation kernel operating in accordance with microcode stored in an associated control store; a distribution circuit that routes individual network traffic segments corresponding to said input data to said plurality of microcode controlled state machines, such that at least one individual microcode controlled state machine applies a rule encoded in said microcode to said individual network traffic segments to produce modification instructions; and a circuit that performs a modification of said input data based on said modification instructions from said at least one microcode controlled state machine to produce said output data.