Patent ID: 8713628

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving data traffic from a plurality of networks corresponding to a plurality of subscribers; routing the data traffic over a communication path to one or more service aggregators within a security platform to process the data traffic according to two or more security services performed in sequence by the security platform, wherein the security services are provided as a managed service by a service provider for each of the plurality of subscribers; receiving the processed data from the one or more service aggregators; and routing the processed data to the corresponding one of the networks, wherein the security platform is configured as a network cloud, wherein each of the one or more service aggregators includes a service sequencing module that controls the sequence of the two or more security services that are performed for each of the plurality of subscribers, and wherein, when the data traffic routed to the to the one or more service aggregators within the security platform is sent from a sender that is a subscriber and is destined for a receiver that is another subscriber, two sets of security services are separately applied to the data traffic, one set of security services corresponding to the sender subscriber and one set of security services corresponding to the receiver subscriber.