Software control systems may enable the flexibility to implement solutions that may not have been possible without virtualization. This flexibility, however, may often result in less efficiency in virtualized solutions than non-virtualized or hardware counterparts. As a result, software control systems may not employ the same solutions or approaches as non-virtualized or hardware. Rather, software control systems may be optimized for certain functions, such as computing or storing information.

As demand for data increases, particularly with the rise in demand of video, video-conferencing, and cloud computing, the size of data flows and associated network bandwidth may also increase. Such large data flows, also known as elephant flows may overwhelm a network with data path processing. Physical network ports and additional compute power may need to be purchased at a high cost to support a data path with numerous elephant flows.

As will be described in further detail, methods and systems are disclosed for using an SDN controller to bypass a firewall for authorized flows and to authorize flows. In this manner, fewer physical network ports and less compute power may be required to support elephant flows.