Patent ID: 8869237

Claim:
A method comprising: creating a network security policy to apply to network traffic, wherein a plurality of IP values are elements of the network security policy; de-conflicting a current configuration against the plurality of IP values; creating a protocol-specific list from the plurality of IP values using filters; configuring a domain name system (DNS) server to resolve a DNS query to the network security policy; receiving a name-to-IP value mapping request from a network device, wherein a name of the network security policy is a name for which name-to-IP value mapping is requested; resolving the network security policy name to the plurality of IP values at the DNS server; propagating the network security policy to the network device by transmitting the plurality of IP values to the network device in response to the name-to-IP value mapping request, thereby allowing the network device to utilize one or more of the plurality of IP values when applying network security to network traffic at the network device.