Patent ID: 7610375

Claim:
In a network environment having a plurality of traffic sources, a system for monitoring traffic on at least a portion of said plurality of traffic sources comprising: a plurality of intrusion detection systems; and a switch comprising logic that when executed is operable to: copy traffic from each of said plurality of traffic sources; and redirect the copied traffic to a virtual local area network (VLAN) for intrusion detection monitoring purposes; the VLAN comprising the switch or a second switch, either of which comprising logic that when executed is operable to: determine a plurality of traffic types associated with the traffic, the plurality of traffic types associated with a plurality of protocol types; filter and redirect the traffic using a redirect decision, wherein the logic operable to filter removes a first portion of the traffic from being sent to an intrusion detection system, wherein the logic to redirect is operable to: determine a first traffic source for a second portion of traffic associated with a first set of two or more intrusion detection systems configured to monitor traffic for the first traffic source and a second traffic source for a third portion of traffic associated with a second set of one or more intrusion detection systems configured to monitor traffic for the second traffic source; for the first traffic source, determine a first intrusion detection system (IDS) in the first set of two or more intrusion detection systems based on the determined traffic type of the second portion of traffic being sent, wherein the two or more intrusion detection systems are associated with processing different traffic types; for the second traffic source, determine a second intrusion detection system (IDS) in the second set of one or more intrusion detection systems based on the determined traffic type of the third portion of traffic being sent; and redirect the second portion of traffic to the determined first intrusion detection system and the third portion of traffic to the second intrusion detection system.