US Patent 7810151 Automated change detection within a network environment

A correlation database stores profiling data that describes packet flows within a network. A network device presents a user interface by which a user defines a database trigger to detect database operations that change to the profiling data stored within the correlation database. The network device may maintain a log to record the detected database operations. The database trigger may specify a combination of low-level network elements associated with the packet flows and application-layer elements extracted from application-layer communications reassembled from the packet flows.