US Patent 10148459 Network service insertion

Network service insertion includes determining a tunnel interface corresponding to a service entity to which an incoming packet is to be directed, the tunnel interface being determined based on software defined network (SDN) flow rules. Further, the incoming packet can be encapsulated based on a tunnel configuration corresponding to the tunnel interface to generate an encapsulated packet such that the encapsulated packet includes media access control (MAC) address headers and a virtual local area network (VLAN) tag associated with the incoming packet. The encapsulated packet can be sent to the service entity through the tunnel interface for network service insertion.