Traditional stateful packet inspection firewalls focus on blocking network layer threats by evaluating the ports and protocols used by network layer traffic. The latest next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) utilize deep packet inspection to scan the entire packet payload to provide advanced intrusion prevention, antimalware, content filtering and anti-spam. Many applications are delivered over the web sharing common ports and HTTP or HTTPS protocols. This effectively leaves traditional firewalls blind to these applications and unable to prioritize productive and secure versus unproductive and potentially insecure traffic. Next-generation firewalls provide insight into the applications themselves, providing a critical capability for networking professionals