Patent ID: 9723106
Date: 2017-08-01
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method comprising: at a controller apparatus that is configured to generate provisioning information to establish a service function chain that includes a plurality of service functions to be performed by two or more service nodes, generating the provisioning information so as to include at least one condition upon which a service function reclassification or branching operation is to be performed by at least one of the two or more service nodes, wherein the provisioning information includes routing information comprising a hop-number index, a service function node address, a service function identifier, and a condition, wherein the hop-number index indicates an index of a service function in the service function chain, the service node address is an address of a next service node in the service function chain, the service function identifier is an identifier of a service function to be performed at a current service node, and the condition is the at least one condition; and supplying the provisioning information to a network device which in turn distributes the provisioning information to the two or more service nodes according to a distributed routing protocol.