DYNAMIC CONTENT-BASED ROUTING

• US 20110154477A1
• Filed: 12/22/2009
• Published: 06/23/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Zawadowskiy, Andrew, Parla, Vincent E., McCowan, David J., Fitzgerald, Christopher A., Gladstone, Philip John Steuart
• Granted Patent: US 8,533,780 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0272 Virtual private networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles

Abstract

Systems and methods for redirecting network traffic include a policy server configured to be in communication with a policy database and a client disposed on a remote device. The policy server is configured to receive an inquiry from the client regarding a universal resource locator (URL) request and, based on a policy obtained from the policy database, cause the client to control the remote device such that network traffic associated with the URL request is routed (tunneled) via a particular interface, e.g., a virtual private network (VPN) connection, when so required by the policy, and network traffic associated with the URL request is routed over a different VPN connection or a non-VPN connection when so required by the policy.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a policy server configured to be in communication with a policy database; and

a client disposed on a remote device,

the policy server configured to receive an inquiry from the client regarding a use request and, based on a policy obtained from the policy database, cause the client to control the remote device such that network traffic associated with the use request is routed via an indicated interface when so required by the policy, and network traffic associated with the use request is routed over another interface when so required by the policy.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the indicated interface is a first virtual private network (VPN) connection.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the another interface is selected from the group consisting of a second VPN connection different from the first VPN connection, a local area network interface, a wireless communications interface, a cellular telecommunications interface and a proxy interface.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the use request is a universal resource locator (URL) request, and wherein the policy database contains URLs and corresponding policies.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the client is configured to intercept the URL request and send the URL request as part of the inquiry to the policy server.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the use request is for an application.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the remote device is a mobile device.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the client is configured to access cached policies on the remote device.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is in communication with a content filter service.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the policy server is in communication with the content filter service.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the policy database is updated based on information received from the filter service.

12. A method, comprising:

receiving an inquiry regarding a universal resource locator (URL) request;

querying a policy database having stored therein a plurality of URLs, where each URL has a respective routing preference; and

tunneling network traffic to and from a remote device over a virtual private network (VPN) connection when so required by the routing preference obtained from the policy database, and routing network traffic associated with the browser URL request via a non-VPN connection when so required by the routing preference obtained from the policy database.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising receiving the inquiry from a mobile device.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising caching the routing preference on the remote device.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising blocking network traffic associated with the browser URL request.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising inspecting protocol elements to determine the routing preference.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising causing the remote device to route the network traffic via the VPN based on a value of one or more selected protocol elements.

18. A processor readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

intercept a universal resource locator (URL) request to obtain an intercepted URL request;

query, using the intercepted URL request, a policy database having stored therein a plurality of URLs, where each URL has a respective routing preference; and

in accordance with a response from the query including a routing preference for the URL, cause a remote device integrated with the processor to tunnel network traffic to and from the remote device over a first virtual private network (VPN) connection or route network traffic associated with the URL request via a second VPN connection different from the first VPN connection or via a non-VPN connection.

19. The processor readable medium of claim 18, further encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

cache the response from the query.

20. The processor readable medium of claim 18, further encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

cause the remote device to block network traffic associated with the URL request.