Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products for firewall policy optimization are disclosed. According to one method, a firewall policy including an ordered list of firewall rules is defined. For each rule, a probability indicating a likelihood of receiving a packet matching the rule is determined. The rules are sorted in order of non-increasing probability in a manner that preserves the firewall policy.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products for providing function-parallel firewalls are disclosed. According to one aspect, a function-parallel firewall includes a first firewall node for filtering received packets using a first portion of a rule set including a plurality of rules. The first portion includes less than all of the rules in the rule set. At least one second firewall node filters packets using a second portion of the rule set. The second portion includes at least one rule in the rule set that is not present in the first portion. The first and second portions together include all of the rules in the rule set.

Abstract: There is disclosed a decentralized flow control technique based on microeconomics. In this framework, there are three important entities: switches, network brokers and users. Switches independently price their resources to provide flow control and to encourage high utilization. A network broker, located at the entrance of the network, works as an agent for a user, monitoring the budget, prices and needs. Using this information the network broker may purchase resources to maximize the user's quality of service. This approach has several advantages such as: decentralized control, minimal signaling, Pareto-optimal resource distribution, price stability and high network utilization.