Reliable and consistent statistics relating to network traffic flow are important diagnostic tools in the operation of the modern datacenter. For instance, several classes of network errors and even failures include forwarding errors, very low rate packet loss that isn't accounted for by the device that is actually losing the packet, which may be identified if accurate packets statistics are available. However, current packet (and/or byte) counting methodologies and/or devices often fail to provide an accurate and consistent assessment of packet flow across a network, which negatively impacts the ability of this type of statistical information to serve the desired diagnostic purposes.