Patent ID: 7917647

Claim:
An apparatus for rate limiting to control amounts of data in a passive network monitoring pipelined system, said apparatus comprising: a processor-implemented packet filter module having a first rate limiting mechanism for discarding particular incoming packets and passing on non-discarded packets; a monitor receiving said non-discarded packets from said packet filter module, said monitor processing said non-discarded packets and outputting corresponding events, said monitor having a second rate limiting mechanism for discarding particular incoming events and passing on non-discarded events; a logger module having a third rate limiting mechanism for discarding unwanted data and passing on said non-discard events, said logger module within a policy monitor module receiving said outputted corresponding events from said monitor; and a reporting module, having a fourth rate limiting mechanism wherein said non-discarded events are received from said logger module and combined with like events in a roll-up over a time interval or based on the hierarchy of objects to meet storage requirements.