Patent attributes
A computer system having a plurality of virtual machines is provided. Each virtual machine in the computer system has an associated policy (rules) database and database (policy table) for storing rules and a database lookup associated with the policy database. One policy database/database lookup pair per virtual machine allows each virtual machine to have a different set of packet processing rules and security policies for handling the same key. In addition, the policy database associated with one virtual machine may be updated and the database lookup associated with the policy database re-generated independently without requiring any update of the policy database lookups associated with any of the other policy databases in the computer system.
