System and methods for providing differentiated services within a network communication system

A service module incorporated within the network infrastructure intercepts packets communicated between a client and a server to determine whether the connection corresponds to one of a plurality of service applications that may supported by the service module. If so, the service module breaks the connection by terminating the connection with the client at the service module and opening a separate connection between the service module and the server. The service application may then perform application-specific process of the data communicated between the client and server. In order to increase processing efficiency associated with classifying the connection between the client and the server, the service module stores classification rules in a plurality of hashing tables, with hash conflicts arranged as an m-ary tree structure. This arrangement enables the service module to efficiently search for classification rules and resolve hash conflicts without imposing a significant processing penalty.