Patent ID: 8259722

Claim:
A network router comprising: a plurality of interfaces configured to send and receive packets; a routing engine comprising a control unit that executes a routing protocol to maintain routing information specifying routes through a network; a packet forwarding engine configured by the routing engine to apply forwarding information to select next hops for the packets and forward the packets to the interfaces in accordance with the routing information; one or more advertising engine service cards comprising a packet inspection engine and an advertising engine control unit; wherein the packet forwarding engine stores a set of dynamic filters that identify packets for inspection by the packet inspection engine based on characteristics of the packet, wherein the packet forwarding engine applies the set of dynamic filters to the received packets and directs any matching ones of the packets from the packet forwarding engine to the packet inspection engine within the advertising engine service card, wherein the packet inspection engine of the advertising engine service card analyzes the packets to extract information from the packets based on configured advertising engine policies; and wherein the advertising engine control unit outputs commands to dynamically reconfigure the packet forwarding engine of the router to dynamically add and delete filters from the set of dynamic filters applied by the packet forwarding engine.