Software-defined service insertion for network fabrics

A method comprising:

• identifying, by a controller of a network fabric, endpoints associated with the network fabric and services that execute service functions for traffic communicated between the endpoints and through the network fabric;
• determining to provision a service chain between an endpoint pair of the network fabric, the endpoint pair including a source endpoint and destination endpoint;
• determining, by the controller, a first location in the network fabric at which traffic communicated between the source endpoint and the destination endpoint is to be routed through a first service of the service chain;
• determining, by the controller, a second location in the network fabric at which traffic communicated between the source endpoint and the destination endpoint is to be routed through a second service of the service chain;
• generating traffic steering directives to be provided to network nodes at the first and second locations in the network to route traffic through at least the first and second services;
• and
• providing the network nodes with respective traffic steering directives that instruct the network nodes to route the traffic through the at least the first and second services.

One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

• identifying, by a controller of a network fabric, endpoints associated with the network fabric and services that execute service functions for traffic communicated between the endpoints and through the network fabric;
• determining to provision a service chain between an endpoint pair of the network fabric, the endpoint pair including a source endpoint and destination endpoint;
• determining, by the controller, a first node in the network fabric at which traffic communicated between the source endpoint and the destination endpoint is to be routed through a first service of the service chain;
• determining, by the controller, a second node in the network fabric at which traffic communicated between the source endpoint and the destination endpoint is to be routed through a second service of the service chain;
• generating traffic steering directives to be provided to the first and second nodes in the network to route traffic through at least the first and second services;
• and
• providing the first and second network nodes with respective traffic steering directives that instruct the network nodes to route the traffic through the at least the first and second services.