Patent ID: 8619773

Claim:
A method, comprising: performing, by a first packet switching device in a network, a lookup operation in a forwarding information base (FIB) based on a destination address of a native packet to determine a second packet switching device in the network to which the first packet switching device should forward the native packet; sending, by the first packet switching device, a request packet to an application node of one or more application nodes in the network configured to apply one or more services to a representation of the native packet, with the request packet including the representation of the native packet and an identification of the second packet switching device; applying, by said one or more application nodes, said one or more services to the representation of the native packet resulting in a resulting packet; and sending, by a particular application node of said one or more application nodes, the resulting packet to the second packet switching device based on said identification of the second packet switching device included in the request packet; wherein the first packet switching device, the second packet switching device, and the application node are different standalone network devices in the network.