Dynamic service chaining and late binding

A network visibility appliance comprising:

• an ingress port through which to receive data traffic;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• obtain information that specifies how the network visibility appliance is to guide the data traffic through a network visibility fabric that includes a plurality of network objects in the network visibility appliance for enabling the network visibility appliance to monitor virtualized traffic, the plurality of network objects including a raw endpoint, a tunnel endpoint, an application endpoint and a routing map,
• wherein the tunnel endpoint receives data packets from, or sends data packets to, an environment outside of the network visibility appliance, the application endpoint receives data packets from, or sends data packets to, an application program, and the routing map includes a rule for filtering data packets;
• populate a traffic routing data structure with respective entries for the ingress port and each network object of the plurality of network objects, wherein each entry includes information that indicates how data packets received at a corresponding network object should be routed next so as to define a sequence by which packets are to be routed through the plurality of network objects, and
• modify, in real time, the data structure responsive to a determination that input specifying a modification of the sequence has been received, such that the traffic is guided by the network visibility appliance through a modified sequence of the plurality of network objects in response to the input specifying the modification of the sequence.

At least one non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions, execution of which in a processing system causes the processing system to perform a process comprising:

• obtaining information that specifies how a network visibility appliance in a network visibility fabric is to route data traffic through a network visibility fabric that includes a plurality of network objects in the network visibility appliance for enabling the network visibility appliance to monitor virtualized traffic, the plurality of network objects including a raw endpoint, a tunnel endpoint, an application endpoint and a routing map;
• wherein the tunnel endpoint receives data packets from, or sends data packets to, an environment outside of the network visibility appliance, the application endpoint receives data packets from, or sends data packets to, an application program, and the routing map includes a rule for filtering data packets;
• populating a traffic routing data structure that includes one or more flow tables with the information specifying how the network visibility appliance is to route the data traffic through the network visibility fabric, the network visibility appliance including a plurality of network objects capable of receiving incoming network traffic, the one or more flow tables including a plurality of traffic routing entries, including a separate traffic routing entry for each of the plurality of network objects,
• wherein each traffic routing entry includes information that indicates how a data packet received by a corresponding network object should be routed next;
• causing the network visibility appliance to implement the traffic routing data structure to route data traffic through the network visibility fabric;
• receiving input that specifies a modification by a user to the network visibility fabric;
• and
• modifying a traffic routing entry in one of the one or more flow tables automatically, in response to the input that specifies the modification by the user to the network visibility fabric, to produce a modified traffic routing data structure;
• and
• causing the network visibility appliance to implement the modified traffic routing data structure to route data traffic through the network visibility fabric according to the modification.