Patent ID: 7308711

Claim:
A method for determining a plurality of network policies to be applied to a packet at a first layer process from a plurality of layer processes, comprising: identifying, by the first layer process, a set of parameters associated with the packet received from a second layer process from the plurality of layer processes; sending, by the first layer process, a request to identify the network policies to be applied to the packet; the request including the parameters associated with the packet and parameters associated with the first layer process; receiving, at the first layer process, a response that includes a first policy value identifying a first network policy and a second policy value identifying a second network policy, wherein the first policy value comprises an action and the second policy value comprises a policy context; and if the action is an instruction to allow the packet to continue network traversal, processing the packet according to a protocol implemented by the first layer process and sending the packet to a third layer process from the plurality of layer processes.