US Patent 11436053 Third-party hardware integration in virtual networks

A network appliance is configured to receive a packet having an address of a custom device as a source address. Policies are accessed that are applicable to a virtual network associated with the custom device. The policies are applied to the packet. A hairpin layer redirects the packet to a destination address contained in the packet. For subsequent packets, application of the policies is bypassed to the subsequent packets. Application of the policies is offloaded to an acceleration device.