SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSIGNING NETWORK BLOCKS TO SENSORS

• US 20110307600A1
• Filed: 06/11/2010
• Published: 12/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/11/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Sourcefire Incorporated (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Vogel, William Andrew III, Polley, Jonathan
• Granted Patent: US 8,433,790 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies

Abstract

A system includes a processor device. The processor device is configured to detect a physical topology of a network comprising hosts and sensors in the network. The processor device is also configured to generate a sensor policy for assignment of the sensors to network blocks of the hosts, that balances a processing load and accuracy of the sensors in the network based on physical closeness of the sensors to different divisions of hosts within a same network block.

Claims

1. A computer system, comprising:

a processor device configured to;

detect a physical topology of a network comprising hosts and sensors in the network; and

generate a sensor policy for assignment of the sensors to network blocks of the hosts, that balances a processing load and accuracy of the sensors in the network based on physical closeness of the sensors to different divisions of hosts within a same network block.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising scoring distance between each sensor and hosts within divisions of the same network block.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising scaling the scoring to increasingly prefer a larger network block as the divisions of hosts within the network block are iteratively smaller.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein a sensor most suited to the network block is determined by recursively determining sensors with best physical proximity scores for smaller and smaller divisions of the network block

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising transmitting the sensor policy to the sensors in the network to instruct the sensors as to which hosts to monitor.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising displaying the sensor policy for assignment of the sensor, on a display to a user for acceptance of the sensor policy.

7. A method, comprising:

in a processor device, detecting a physical topology of a network comprising hosts and sensors in the network; and

in the processor device, generating a sensor policy for assignment of the sensors to network blocks of the hosts, that balances a processing load and accuracy of the sensors in the network based on physical closeness of the sensors to different divisions of hosts within a same network block.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising scoring distance between each sensor and hosts within divisions of the same network block.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising scaling the scoring to increasingly prefer a larger network block as the divisions of hosts within the network block are iteratively smaller.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising determining a sensor most suited to the network block by recursively determining sensors with best physical proximity scores for smaller and smaller divisions of the network block

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising transmitting the sensor policy to the sensors in the network to instruct the sensors as to which hosts to monitor.

12. The method of claim 7, further comprising displaying the sensor policy for assignment of the sensor, on a display to a user for acceptance of the sensor policy.

13. An apparatus configured to perform the method of claim 7.

14. A computer readable medium comprising executable instructions for performing the method of claim 7.

15. A computer-readable storage medium comprising non-transitory computer-executable instructions for performing the steps of:

detecting a physical topology of a network comprising hosts and sensors in the network; and

generating a sensor policy for assignment of the sensors to network blocks of the hosts, that balances a processing load and accuracy of the sensors in the network based on physical closeness of the sensors to different divisions of hosts within a same network block.

16. The storage medium of claim 15, further comprising scoring distance between each sensor and hosts within divisions of the same network block.

17. The storage medium of claim 16, further comprising scaling the scoring to increasingly prefer a larger network block as the divisions of hosts within the network block are iteratively smaller.

18. The storage medium of claim 15, further comprising determining a sensor most suited to the network block by recursively determining sensors with best physical proximity scores for smaller and smaller divisions of the network block

19. The storage medium of claim 15, further comprising transmitting the sensor policy to the sensors in the network to instruct the sensors as to which hosts to monitor.

20. The storage medium of claim 15, further comprising displaying the sensor policy for assignment of the sensor, on a display to a user for acceptance of the sensor policy.