A method according to one embodiment includes the operations of assigning a network application to at least one first core processing unit, from among a plurality of core processing unit. The method of this embodiment also includes the operations of assigning a first receive queue to said first core processing unit, wherein the first receive queue is configured to receive packet flow associated with the network application; defining a high threshold for the first receive queue; and monitoring the packet flow in the first receive queue and comparing a packet flow level in the first receive queue to the high threshold; wherein if the packet flow level exceeds the threshold based on the comparing, generating a queue status message indicating that the packet flow level in the first queue has exceeded the queue high threshold.