Patent ID: 7577737

Claim:
A method of controlling data to be routed in a data communications network, the network comprising at least a first network node connected via a communications link to a second network node, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: monitoring communications at the first network node, received at a firewall associated with the first network node; wherein the first network node is in a customer communications network and the second network node is in a service provider communications network separate from the customer communications network; and detecting changes in the communications received at the firewall associated with the first network node; in response to detecting changes in communications of data received from the firewall associated with the first network node by the first network node about the communications at the first network node, based on the detected changes, at the first network node, determining whether bandwidth needs to be reduced for data sent from a first identified source; and including in a filter control message information indicating how the bandwidth needs to be reduced by the second network node for the data destined for the first network node from the first identified source; sending the filter control message to the second network node, said filter control message including information configured for updating filter characteristics at the second network node and configured for dynamically reducing the bandwidth for the data destined for the first network node from the first identified source.