US 11,924,160 B2
Application awareness in a data network with network address translation
Murukanandam Panchalingam, Dublin, CA (US); Umamaheswararao Karyampudi, Fremont, CA (US); Sudhakar Chunduru, Dublin, CA (US); Junyun Li, San Jose, CA (US); and Ajay Kumar Modi, San Jose, CA (US)
Assigned to CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed by Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed on Feb. 22, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/677,560.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/232,063, filed on Aug. 11, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0046070 A1, Feb. 16, 2023
Int. Cl. G06F 15/16 (2006.01); H04L 61/2503 (2022.01); H04L 101/622 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 61/2503 (2013.01) [H04L 2101/622 (2022.05)] 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of traffic management in a network, the method comprising:
receiving, at a first switch in a network, first traffic from a first application hosted behind the first switch;
identifying, from the first traffic, a first source tag indicating that the first application generated the first traffic, the first traffic being associated with a source Internet Protocol (IP) address that is different than the first source tag;
receiving, at the first switch, rules that indicate actions to perform on traffic sent from applications associated with various source tags;
identifying, from the rules and using the first source tag, a first rule for the first application indicating that the first traffic generated by the first application is to be routed through an intermediate device that performs network address translation;
sending the first traffic to the intermediate device;
receiving the first traffic at the intermediate device;
translating, using network address translation (NAT) at the intermediate device, the source IP address of the first traffic to a second IP address associated with the intermediate device; and
sending the first traffic to a first destination address indicated in the first traffic.