1. A method of optimizing a network of filters for extracting real-time, high-value information from a stream of packets, comprising: at a computer system including a plurality of processors and memory storing programs for execution by the processors: receiving a filter graph definition, wherein the filter graph definition includes a plurality of filter nodes, each filter node including one or more filters that accept or reject packets, wherein each respective filter is categorized by a count of operations needed to execute the respective filter, and wherein the one or more filters are arranged in a general graph; optimizing the filter graph definition, the optimizing including: determining if a closed circuit exists within the graph, and when the closed circuit exists within the graph, removing the closed circuit; reordering a first filter and a second filter of the filter graph definition based at least in part on respective counts of operations needed to execute the first filter and the second filter; and parallelizing the one or more filters to be executed on the plurality of processors.