Abstract: Assigning priority values to applications in advance facilitates later precedence ordering of the application identifiers when processing network traffic. The priority values can be assigned according to defined rules that satisfy a paradigm for application precedence in policy enforcement. When multiple application identifiers are determined from inspecting network traffic of a flow, a control plane process retrieves the assigned priority values and sorts the application identifiers according to the priority values. The control plane then communicates the sorted list of application identifiers to the data plane. The data plane enforces policies set for the applications identified in the list of application identifiers on the corresponding network traffic flow according to the order of precedence conveyed by the sorted list. This allows flexible and accurate policy enforcement on network traffic.

Abstract: Assigning priority values to applications in advance facilitates later precedence ordering of the application identifiers when processing network traffic. The priority values can be assigned according to defined rules that satisfy a paradigm for application precedence in policy enforcement. When multiple application identifiers are determined from inspecting network traffic of a flow, a control plane process retrieves the assigned priority values and sorts the application identifiers according to the priority values. The control plane then communicates the sorted list of application identifiers to the data plane. The data plane enforces policies set for the applications identified in the list of application identifiers on the corresponding network traffic flow according to the order of precedence conveyed by the sorted list. This allows flexible and accurate policy enforcement on network traffic.

Abstract: In a network control plane, a pattern matching database is built and maintained for identifying an application or application level protocol. In addition, pattern matching databases for predicting a subsequent flow for application layer/level protocols or data protocols are built and maintained. After flow differentiation in network traffic mirrored from a data plane, the network traffic flow is scanned in a first stage and then in a second stage if a signaling protocol message is detected in the first stage scan. For the second stage, one of the application/data protocol pattern databases is selected for scanning based on the signaling protocol message detected in the first stage scanning. If a match is found from the stage 2 scanning, a mapping between the signaling protocol identifier and an identifier for a predicted application traffic flow is created and communicated to the data plane for policy selection and enforcement.