Apparatus and method for managing P2P traffic

A computerized peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic management method that manages P2P traffic on a network through which encrypted P2P traffic is exchanged, the P2P traffic management method comprising:

• allowing monitoring by P2P flow agents executable by one or more hardware processors executed application programs to extract a P2P application program, adding application identifiers to encrypted packets generated by the application program according to a policy set for the extracted P2P application program, and transmitting the encrypted packets;
• monitoring by P2P security gateways executable by the one or more hardware processors the encrypted packets from the P2P flow agents to extract the encrypted packets having the application identifiers, using the extracted application identifiers to inquire and acquire a related policy, and controlling the encrypted packets according to the acquired policy;
• and
• detecting by a hardware live policy update server to detect a new policy input from a domain manager and providing the detected new policy and its operation rules to the P2P security gateway,
• wherein the detected new policy is provided to the P2P security gateways using one of the following methods:
• a first live policy update method in which the live policy update server transmits the detected new policy to at least one P2P security gateway on the network;
• and
• a second live policy update method in which the live policy update server transmits the detected new policy to one P2P security gateway, and one P2P security gateway receives the detected new policy and transmits the new policy to other P2P security gateways on the network;
• and
• wherein the P2P flow agents, the P2P security gateways and the hardware live policy update server selectively recognizing and controlling the P2P application program that generates the encrypted P2P packets where an inspection on a header or payload of the encrypted packets is impossible, to transmit and receive the encrypted packets.