US Patent 7254114 Network router having integrated flow accounting and packet interception

A network router integrates routing functionality with accounting functionality for generation of flow statistics, and provides packet intercept functionality to provide a comprehensive traffic analysis environment. The router includes a set of interface cards to receive packets from a network, and a control unit to generate a first and second duplicate stream of the packets. The control unit provides the packets of the first stream to accounting modules for calculation of flow statistics, and applies an intercept filter to intercept at least a subset of the packets of the second stream for selected packet flows.