Patent ID: 8817638

Claim:
A method comprising at a respective communication device of a plurality of communication devices in a network, identifying applications of the respective communication device; identifying protocols used by the respective communication device for processing packets received at the respective communication device; determining parameter values associated with the identified applications and for use by the respective communication device for determining how to process packets received at the respective communication device; generating respective networking state information for the respective communication device, the respective networking state information including the determined parameter values and further defining data communication paths available to use for transmitting data from the respective communication device; communicating the respective networking state information from the respective communication device to a network management device; receiving from the network management device aggregated networking state information, the aggregated networking state information including the respective networking state information combined with respective networking state information for respective other communication devices of the plurality of communication devices in the network; and subsequently, processing packets received at the respective communication device using the aggregated networking state information.