Patent ID: 8531953

Claim:
A system, comprising: a plurality of destination hosts, each destination host associated with at least one include or exclude pattern, wherein the at least one include or exclude pattern defines whether a plurality of data packets are forwarded to at least one destination host; and a routing server configured to store a configuration file identifying the plurality of destination hosts, the configuration file including a destination host address, a destination host port and at least one include or exclude pattern associated with each destination host, the routing server being indirectly connected to each of the plurality of destination hosts via a computer network; the routing server further configured to receive a plurality of data packets containing log data for one or more system events from a plurality of network devices on the computer network, the routing server further configured to compare contents of the plurality of data packets to the at least one include or exclude pattern in the configuration file and to forward the plurality of data packets to at least one of the destination hosts by creating a copy of each of the data packets and sending the copy of each of the data packets to the at least one of the destination hosts if the contents of the data packet match an include pattern associated with the at least one of the destination hosts, and the routing server further configured to prevent the data packet from being forwarded to at least one of the destination hosts if the contents of the data packet match an exclude pattern associated with the at least one of the destination hosts.