Application assurance system having a method of offloading service from an edge device to the cloud

Abstract

A cloud-based application assurance service system and method using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) enables Network Elements (NE) to access the cloud-based application assurance service to search a rules/signature database, without impacting latency on network-firewall decisions. Additionally, the application assurance service system distributes the associated mapping of the NE cache's latest contents to neighboring NEs, where a given user might next access the network. The system can recognize applications associated with network traffic and apply firewall rules. Further, the system tracks applications and uses this data to update NE caches periodically, such that NE caches are more likely to store the relevant application signatures in advance. Moreover, a historical user usage matrix is generated to track application use per user, which is used to detect a highly probable user path and transfer mapping to an associated NE.