US Patent 7580356 Method and system for dynamically capturing flow traffic data

An exemplary embodiment provides for a method for recording network traffic data that can be used in a network device operably disposed in a network, wherein the network device comprises a measurement data structure including at least one entry and a corresponding measurement key and wherein the at least one entry comprises at least one measurement attribute. The method includes receiving a packet and matching the packet to a data flow. A measurement policy for the data flow is identified, wherein the measurement policy comprises one or more measurement axes corresponding to respective data flow attributes, and a rule set relating to at least one of the one or more measurement axes. The rule set is applied to dynamically select one or more of the measurement axes in the measurement policy to be applied to the data flow. A measurement key is created based on the selected one or more measurement axes and attributes of the data flow corresponding to the selected one or more measurement axes. The measurement key is matched to an entry in a measurement data structure. If a matching entry is found, at least one of the one or more measurement attributes is updated corresponding to the entry based on the received packet. If no matching entry is found, a new entry is created in the measurement data structure.