A machine has a bus, an input port connected to the bus to receive inbound network traffic, an output port connected to the bus to convey outbound network traffic and a processor complex connected to the bus. The processor complex is configured as a pipeline with individual processor cores assigned individual network traffic processing tasks. The pipeline includes a first set of processor cores to construct network traffic trees characterizing the inbound network traffic and the outbound network traffic. Each network traffic tree characterizes traffic type and traffic rate. A second set of processor cores enforces network traffic policies utilizing the network traffic trees. The network traffic policies apply traffic rate control by traffic type for the inbound network traffic and the outbound network traffic.