Network Packet Forwarding Systems And Methods To Push Packet Pre-Processing Tasks To Network Tap Devices

A method to forward packets from multiple monitoring points within a packet network communication system to one or more destination devices, comprising:

• monitoring, with a plurality of network tap devices, multiple points within a network to generate tapped packet flows associated with network traffic flowing through the multiple points;
• transmitting the tapped packet flows from each network tap to a tap controller;
• generating, with the tap controller, one or more pre-processing rules for the network tap devices based upon the tapped packet flows;
• transmitting control messages from the tap controller to the network tap devices, the control messages including the pre-processing rules;
• pre-processing the tapped packet flows at the multiple network tap devices using the pre-processing rules to generate pre-processed packet flows;
• transmitting the pre-processed packet flows to the tap controller;
• further processing the pre-processed packet flows with the tap controller to generate output packet flows;
• and
• forwarding the output packet flows to one or more destination devices.