Aspects of the disclosure relate to inspecting a data stream. Some aspects include conveying the data stream through a multi-level data channel and inspection architecture. The architecture includes a multi-level data pipeline. The pipeline includes a plurality of parallel pipes. The output of one pipe provides an input to a successive one of the pipes. The method further includes receiving the data stream at an upstream portion of the pipeline and inspecting data in the data stream for converting the data stream into inspected data. The method then outputs inspected data at a downstream portion of the pipeline. Each of the pipes inspect the data on a different level of data channel inspection than the other pipes. Each level of data channel inspection has data attributes and/or metadata extracting capabilities. Each pipe transfer data packets at greater than or equal to a threshold data transfer rate.