Methods and apparatus for providing services in distributed switch

A non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions to be executed by a processor, the code comprising code to cause the processor to:

• receive, from a source peripheral processing device, a portion of a data packet having a destination address associated with a destination peripheral processing device;
• identify, based at least in part on the destination address and a data traffic type, a service to be performed on the portion of the data packet, the data traffic type being one of a web traffic type or a voice traffic type;
• generate a timestamp of the portion of the data packet based on a time at which the portion of the data packet was received from the source peripheral processing device;
• based on the service and the timestamp, and prior to sending the portion of the data packet to any service module from a set of service modules, select a service module from the set of service modules based on at least one of (1) selecting an identifier of the service module, the identifier being selected based on a result of a hash function having the destination address as an input to the hash function, (2) a physical proximity of the service module to one of (a) the source peripheral processing device, or (b) the destination peripheral processing device, or (3) a status of the service module;
• and
• based on the selection of the service module, send the portion of the data packet to the service module via a distributed switch fabric such that the service module performs the service on the portion of the data packet and sends the portion of the data packet to the destination peripheral processing device via the distributed switch fabric.