A network security device may gather a large amount of metadata pertaining to the connections being managed thereby. A refinement module may filter and/or aggregate the connection metadata. The metadata may be refined on the network security device. The refined metadata may be provided for display on a terminal. The refined metadata may include a subset of the larger connection metadata, which may reduce the overhead required to display and/or transmit monitoring information to the terminal device. The refined metadata may comprise connection groups, which may be formed based on aggregation criteria, such as connection source, destination, application, security policy, protocol, port, and/or the like. The connection groups may be ranked in accordance with ranking criteria.