The term machine learning or ML is in vogue today and it seems like computer scientists are using it for everything. A dictionary style definition of ML is "the use of algorithms and mathematical models to aid computer systems in progressively improving their performance on a specific task". This could be applied to anything from heating and cooling systems to self-driving vehicles. One of Accolade's partners, OPNids, uses machine learning techniques to enhance the efficacy of a popular security platform called Suricata. With ML the number of false positives or alerts from Suricata are reduced as the algorithms begin to understand the nature and patterns of the threats that are being detected.

Each ANIC adapter has a very powerful and flexible L2/L3/L4 packet parser. The header information from each packet that enters the system is extracted and processed to inform the host application about relevant packet details and also as input for packet filtering. The parser is able to recognize various tunneling and encapsulation protocols such as VLAN, VXLAN, MPLS, GTP and GRE. The adapter is then able to intelligently strip away the tunnel encapsulations and analyze the relevant packet information contained inside the tunnel.