Network device and method for processing traffic using multi-network interface card

1. A network device comprising:

a first network card configured to classify input packets, filter and discard a first packet of classified packets, and transmit a second packet of the classified packets to a second network card;

the second network card configured to perform deep packet inspection and processing of the second packet received by the first network card;

a processor configured to manage the first and second network cards and apply network policies to the first and second network cards, respectively,

wherein the first network card filters and discards the packets corresponding to second to fourth layers of the input packets, transmits the packets requiring inspection and not corresponding to the second to fourth layers to the second network card, and transmits other normal packets to networks,

wherein the deep packet inspection comprises parsing application services from the packets, retrieving applications policies, and attempting to match the application services with corresponding application policies, and

wherein the second network card transfers the packets back to the first network card after changing a payload of the packets according to a matching result of the deep packet inspection,

wherein the first network card:

receives packets from the second network card,

stores the packets received in an asynchronous first in a first out (FIFO) device, and

transmits the packets stored to a network; and

a memory configured to store the network policies.

2. The device of claim 1 , wherein the first network card classifies packets using at least one of a source IP address, a destination IP address, a source port, a destination port, a protocol, and an interface port.

3. The device of claim 1 , wherein the first network card comprises a physical port configured to receive packets from a network, another physical port configured to transmit packets to the network, another physical port configured to transmit packets to the second network card, and another physical port configured to receive packets from the second network card.

4. The device of claim 1 , wherein the first network card stores received packets in the asynchronous FIFO device and then transmits the packets to the network, if the packets are received from the second network card through an inner physical port.

5. The device of claim 1 , wherein the second network card inspects a payload of packets corresponding to layer 5 to layer 7 of the packets classified by the first network card.

6. The device of claim 1 , wherein the second network card inspects at least one of billing, service quality, security service, and application acceleration.

7. The device of claim 1 , wherein the first network card is more than one and the second network card consists a number of sub blocks corresponding to a number of the first network card.

8. The device of claim 1 , wherein the memory receives and stores various network policies including traffic classifying, traffic filtering and application policies from a policy server.

9. A method of processing traffic using a first network card and a second network card at a network device, comprising:

classifying, at the first network card, input packets, filtering and discarding a first packet of classified packets, and transmitting a second packet of the classified packets to the second network card; and

performing deep packet inspection and processing of the second packet received by the first network card at the second network card,

wherein the first network card filters and discards the packets corresponding to second to fourth layers of the input packets, transmits the packets requiring inspection and not corresponding to the second to fourth layers to the second network card, and transmits other normal packets to networks,

wherein the deep packet inspection comprises parsing application services from the packets, retrieving applications policies, and attempting to match the application services with corresponding application policies, and

wherein the second network card transfers the packets back to the first network card after changing a payload of the packets according to a matching result of the deep packet inspection,

wherein the first network card:

receives packets from the second network card,

stores the packets received in an asynchronous first in first out (FIFO) device, and transmits the packets stored to a network.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the classifying and filtering of the traffic comprises:

attempting media access controller (MAC) address matching on packets received;

parsing corresponding packets if the MAC address of a received packet does not correspond to a pre-selected rule as a result of attempting the matching;

creating search keys to retrieve whether the parsed packets match classifying policies and looking up in a table storing the classifying policies using the search keys created; and

processing packets according to pre-defined actions based on a memory value indicated by an index, if a corresponding index exists as a result of looking up the table.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the processing of the packets according to pre-defined actions comprises at least one of:

discarding packets;

bypassing the packets;

transmitting the packets to the second network card; and

transmitting the packets to a network after storing them in the asynchronous FIFO device.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the inspecting and processing of the traffic classified by the first network card comprises:

receiving the packets from the first network card;

retrieving memory values with predefined actions matching the application policies; and

processing the packets according to the memory values retrieved.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the processing of the packets according to the memory values retrieved comprises at least one of:

discarding the packets;

transmitting the packets to a network card after storing them in the asynchronous FIFO device; and

transferring the packets after changing payload of the packets.