Patent ID: 8484147

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a first pattern match engine including storage for data representing a set of patterns, including a first storage for data representing a first set of pattern components, and a second storage for data representing a second set of pattern components, each pattern of the second set of patterns corresponding to one or more components of the first set of pattern components, wherein the data representing the set of patterns includes data representing a finite state network that corresponds to the set of patterns, the data representing the finite state network further including first data representing a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) network that corresponds to the first set of pattern components; a first pattern matcher configured to detect in an input stream a first component of one or more patterns of the set of patterns according to the data representing the first set of pattern components, and to generate a signal indicative of the detection of the first component; a second pattern matcher configured to receive the signal from the first pattern matcher and to detect, according to the data representing the second set of pattern components, if a second component of the one or more patterns of the set of patterns immediately follows the first component in the input stream; and a configuration module configured to generate the data representing the finite state network and partition the finite state network into a first and a second network, the first network having first data corresponding to the first set of pattern components and the second network having second data corresponding to the second set of pattern components; wherein the configuration module partitions the finite state network into the first and second networks based, at least in part, on selection criterion of a first set of states and a second set of states associated with the first and second data, respectively.