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<p><tt><font size="2">Kanzhe, thanks for your response to my comments and questions. Please see below.</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2"><br>
> From: Kanzhe Jiang <kanzhe@gmail.com></font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">> <br>
[...]</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">>> On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 3:18 PM, Mohammad Banikazemi <mb@us.ibm.com> wrote:</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">>> </font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">[...]<br>
>> 3- For the service chain creation, I am sure there are good reasons <br>
>> for requiring a specific provider for a given chain of services but <br>
>> wouldn't it be possible to have a generic "chain" provider which <br>
>> would instantiate each service in the chain using the required <br>
>> provider for each service (e.g., firewall or loadbalancer service) <br>
>> and with setting the insertion contexts for each service such that <br>
>> the chain gets constructed as well? I am sure I am ignoring some <br>
>> practical requirements but is it worth rethinking the current approach? <br>
</font></tt><br>
<tt><font size="2">> Service Chaining often means a form of traffic steering. Depending <br>
> on how the steering is done, the capabilities of different providers<br>
> differ. Different provider may define different context of <br>
> individual service in the chain. For example, a bump-in-the-wire <br>
> service can be inserted as a virtual wire or L3 next hop. So it will<br>
> be hard to define a "generic" chain provider. </font></tt><br>
<br>
<tt><font size="2">With respect to Question 3 above, yes you are right we need possibly different providers for this generic "chain" service type. The solution could be having the "chain" as a service type itself which can be provided by different providers. Different providers can implement the instantiation of a chain differently. This is similar to the current service-chain model in that there may be different providers for a service-chain with the difference being that the service type itself is generic and not specific to a particular chain such as firewall-vpn.</font></tt><br>
<br>
<tt><font size="2">Best,</font></tt><br>
<br>
<tt><font size="2">Mohammad</font></tt><br>
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