Packet is a formatted unit of data with headers and payload that packet-switched networks create, forward, and process independently. It matters in enterprise environments because routing, security controls, traffic engineering, and performance monitoring all operate on packet structures and metadata.
Aviz Networks’ vasn_tap captures and forwards Linux traffic using AF_PACKET or eBPF, with optional filtering, truncation, and userspace VXLAN/GRE plus stats via vasn_tapctl.