Here’s the practical comparison, with the “operator-grade” take on when each wins, what it costs, and how I’d ship it so you don’t regret the choice.

---

## Option 1) Top-N flows (by bytes/packets)

**What you see on the globe:** a handful of “thick” geodesic arcs (big talkers).

### Pros

* **Fastest to implement**: no new aggregation nodes required.
* **Immediately legible**: 10–50 arcs is readable.
* **Great for incident triage**: “what’s moving actual data right now?”

### Cons

* **Misses the most important security story** on internet-facing VMs: scanning is *low-bytes, high-count*. Top-N hides that.
* Biases you toward CDN/updates/legit services (GitHub, Ubuntu mirrors, etc.).
* Can look “boring” unless you’re actively doing transfers.

### Best when

* You’re investigating **exfil**, **C2** with sustained traffic, or **service abuse**.
* You’re in “what matters operationally right now” mode.

### Globe rendering recipe

* Draw Top 25 arcs.
* Thickness = log(bytes)
* Color = dominant port or protocol.
* Label endpoints with ASN/org (optional).

---

## Option 2) Rollups per port (443/22/80…), then drill down

**What you see:** a clean hierarchical picture:
`SESSION → service_port_TCP_443 → top talkers → flows`

### Pros

* **Best default for operator usability** on your kind of data (public VM capture).
* Keeps the globe uncluttered while still showing structure:

  * 443 web noise vs 22 SSH banging vs “weird ports”
* Enables instant “threat posture” views:

  * “Why am I getting hammered on 22?”
  * “Who touched 2375/3389/5900/etc?”
* Drill-down is natural: click port rollup → show Top-N talkers → expand to flows.

### Cons

* Requires you to create/maintain `service_port` rollup nodes/edges (small cost, but real).
* You need a UI control model (tabs/filters) so operators don’t get lost.

### Best when

* Your environment is **internet-facing** and you want to separate:

  * background weather (443/80)
  * auth pressure (22)
  * exploit hunting (weird ports)
* You want globe view to be **useful every day**, not just for big incidents.

### Globe rendering recipe

* Default: show rollups as “hubs” near the capture site (in space above the sensor).
* Click a hub: show top 25 endpoints for that port.
* Second click: show flow arcs for selected endpoint.

---

## Option 3) Country/ASN clusters first, then drill down

**What you see:** “geo intelligence” view:
`SESSION → country_BR → ASN_xxx → hosts/flows`

### Pros

* **Best for “foreign tendrils” questions** and attribution-style clustering.
* ASN clustering finds patterns you’d miss:

  * same provider, many IPs
  * cloud egress blocks behaving similarly
* Perfect for **AR** later: “show me clusters around operator” is a natural concept.

### Cons

* **Highest risk of misleading the operator** if geoip is imperfect:

  * CDN endpoints, anycast, VPN egress, wrong city results
* Needs the best provenance discipline (you’re doing MaxMind now, good).
* Visually it can still get busy unless you aggressively cluster.

### Best when

* You’re doing **campaign-level analysis**, threat clustering, or “follow the money / infrastructure” style OSINT fusion.
* You have **stable geo provenance** and you treat geo as “estimate, not fact.”

### Globe rendering recipe

* Render countries as “floating anchors” at centroid positions (or near capture site for readability).
* Expand → ASN nodes.
* Expand → host endpoints.
* Show arcs only at the leaf level.

---

# The operator-grade recommendation

If you want the Cesium globe to be **useful by default** and not a novelty:

### ✅ Ship Option 2 as the default

**Port rollups first** are the best “daily driver” view. It’s the cleanest way to tame tendrils, and it’s the most relevant abstraction for packet capture recon.

### Add Option 1 as a one-click “Top Talkers” mode

Because when something is actually happening, operators want “show me the biggest pipes.”

### Gate Option 3 behind a “Geo Intelligence” toggle

Because it’s powerful but can mislead if treated as absolute truth. Put it behind a deliberate analyst choice, and always show provenance (source/confidence/as_of) on hover.

So the UI becomes:

* **Ports** (default)
* **Top Talkers**
* **Geo / ASN** (advanced)

---

# How this maps to your existing graph model (cleanly)

### New rollup nodes (Option 2)

* `service_port_TCP_443`
* `service_port_TCP_22`
* `service_port_TCP_80`
* `service_port_TCP_OTHER` (for “weird ports”)
* optional: `service_port_UDP_53`, etc.

### Key edges

* `SESSION_OBSERVED_SERVICE_PORT(session → service_port)`
* `SERVICE_PORT_TOP_TALKER(service_port → host)` (aggregate bytes/flows)
* `HOST_TALKS_TO(host → host)` OR `FLOW_AGG` edges for drilldown

This keeps your Cesium rendering simple:

* Step 1: draw a handful of rollup nodes near the sensor (space above the VM point)
* Step 2: draw arcs only for what the operator expanded

---

# What I’d implement next (concrete)

1. **Backend endpoint**:
   `GET /api/pcap/<session_id>/globe?mode=ports|top|asn&limit=25&port=443`

* `mode=ports`: returns rollup summary + top talkers per port
* `mode=top`: returns top flows by bytes
* `mode=asn`: returns country/asn clusters (with provenance fields)

2. **Cesium overlay**:

* port hubs rendered at `(sensor_latlon + altitude 50–150km)`
* geodesic arcs to endpoints
* click to expand drills; shift-click pins.

3. **AR readiness**:
   all returned objects include:

* `wgs84: {lat, lon, alt}`
* `confidence`
* `provenance`

---

If you tell me which you want as your **default** (I’d pick rollups-per-port), I’ll write the exact request/response JSON schema for `/api/pcap/<session_id>/globe` and the front-end Cesium rendering function that draws:

* “port hubs in space”
* geodesic arcs
* drill-down interactions