Root is not need.
Sniffer packet analyzer can:
1)Verify internal control system effectiveness (firewalls, access control, Web filter, spamfilter, proxy)
2)Analyze network problems
3)Detect network intrusion attempts
4)Detect network misuse by internal and external users
5)Documenting regulatory compliance through logging all perimeter and endpoint traffic
6)Isolate exploited systems
7)Monitor WAN bandwidth utilization
8)Monitor network usage (including internal and external users and systems)
9)Monitor data-in-motion
10)Monitor WAN and endpoint security status
11)Serve as primary data source for day-to-day network monitoring and management

Sniffer simulates a VPN in order to capture the network traffic without root. It does not use a remote VPN server. All the data is processed locally on the device.