At 720, an evaluation for a match may occur. If no match is found, method 700 may proceed to 722. Otherwise, a match is found and method 700 may proceed to 724. At 722, the flow criteria may be inserted into the master data flow list. The master data flow list may be managed by the SDN controller. The flow criteria inserted into the master data flow list may be associated with a timestamp. The timestamp may correspond to the time at which the data packet was received, the time at which the data packet was inserted, or any other suitable time for processing the data packet. The timestamp may include a date and/or a time. Moreover, the flow criteria inserted into the master data flow list may be associated with a timeout. The timeout may indicate the duration to maintain the flow criteria as an entry in the master data flow list. After the expiration of the timeout, the entry may be invalidated, deleted, and/or removed.