CPC H04L 41/5041 (2013.01) [H04L 12/4633 (2013.01); H04L 43/028 (2013.01); H04L 45/00 (2013.01); H04L 47/2408 (2013.01); H04L 47/2483 (2013.01); H04L 67/1014 (2013.01); G06F 2009/45595 (2013.01); H04L 63/0209 (2013.01); H04L 63/123 (2013.01); H04L 67/10 (2013.01); H04L 69/22 (2013.01); H04L 2212/00 (2013.01)] | 19 Claims |
1. In a multi-tenant network, a method of specifying service operations for a data message associated with a particular machine of a particular tenant, the method comprising:
in a Geneve (Generic Network Virtualization Encapsulation) tunnel header for encapsulating the data message, storing a tenant identifier identifying the particular tenant and a plurality of service identifiers associated with a plurality of service machines for performing a plurality of service operations on the data message, the plurality of service identifiers stored in a variable sized option field of the tunnel header that allows different number of service machines to be specified for performing different numbers of service operations for different data message flows; and
forwarding the data message encapsulated with the tunnel header along a tunnel to a first service machine to perform a first service operation identified by the plurality of service identifiers,
wherein the Geneve tunnel header is placed outside of layers 2 and 3 headers of the data message.
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