US Patent 11323487 Scalable policy management for virtual networks

Techniques are disclosed for implementing scalable policies across a plurality of categories that support application workloads. In one example, a policy controller assigns to the plurality of categories tags specifying one or more of a plurality of dimensions. The policy controller distributes a plurality of policies to policy agents for the plurality of categories. Each policy includes one or more policy rules, and each policy rule includes one or more tags specifying one or more of the plurality of dimensions. For each policy rule, the policy agents allow or deny a traffic flow between objects that belong to categories of the plurality of categories described by the one or more dimensions of a respective tag of the policy rule.