Patent ID: 7093288

Claim:
A computing device comprising: a set of filters; a mapping of virtual addresses to network addresses; and a controller, coupled to the set of filters and the mapping, to, access, upon receipt of a data packet requested to be sent from the computing device to a target device via a network, the set of filters and determine whether the data packet can be sent to the target device based on whether the computing device is allowed to communicate with the target device, replace, based on the mapping, the target address in the data packet with a corresponding target network address; forward the data packet to the target device at the target network address if it is determined the data packet can be sent to the target device; prevent the computing device from modifying any of the filters in the set of filters, but allow the set of filters to be modified by a plurality of remote devices operating at a plurality of different managerial levels, a first of the plurality of remote devices being a cluster operations management console for managing hardware operations of the computing device, a second of the plurality of remote devices being an application operations management console for managing software operations of the computing device; and prevent the application operations management console from adding any filters to the set of filters that are less restrictive than filters added by the cluster operations management console.