Packet capture is the act of capturing data packets crossing a computer network. Packet capture can be: Deep packet capture (headers & payload), or partial packet capture (headers only).
Packet capture is the act of capturing data packets crossing a computer network. Deep packet capture (DPC) is the act of capturing, at full network speed, complete network packets (header and payload) crossing a network with a high traffic rate. Once captured and stored, either in short-term memory or long-term storage, software tools can perform Deep packet inspection (DPI) to review network packet data, perform forensics analysis to uncover the root cause of network problems, identify security threats, and ensure data communications and network usage complies with outlined policy. Some DPCs can be coupled with DPI and can as a result manage, inspect, and analyze all network traffic in real-time at wire speeds while keeping a historical archive of all network traffic for further analysis.
Partial packet capture can record headers without recording the total content of datagrams. This can reduce storage requirements, and avoid legal problems, but yet have enough data to reveal the essential information required for problem diagnosis.
Source: Wikipedia.
