Providing stateful services in a scalable manner for machines executing on host computers

A method for providing services on a host computer that executes a plurality of machines, the method comprising:

• configuring, for a first machine executing on the host computer, a first plurality of service containers executing on the host computer, said configuring the first plurality of service comprising configuring on the host computer a first Pod on which the first plurality of service containers for the first machine operate;
• configuring, for a second machine executing on the host computer, a second plurality of service containers executing on the host computer, said configuring the second plurality of service comprising configuring on the host computer a second Pod on which the second plurality of service containers for the second machine operate, each service container configured for each particular machine for performing a service operation on data messages associated with the particular machine;
• configuring, for each particular machine, a module along the particular machine's datapath to identify a set of service operations to perform on a set of data messages associated with the particular machine, and to direct the set of data messages to a set of service containers configured for the particular machine to perform the identified set of service operations on the set of data messages.

A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for execution by at least one processing unit of the host computer, the program providing services on the host computer that executes a plurality of machines, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

• configuring, for a first machine executing on the host computer, a first plurality of service containers executing on the host computer;
• configuring, for a second machine executing on the host computer, a second plurality of containers executing on the host computer, each service container configured for each particular machine for performing a service operation on data messages associated with the particular machine;
• configuring, for each particular machine, a module along the particular machine's datapath to identify a set of service operations to perform on a set of data messages associated with the particular machine, and to direct the set of data messages to a set of service containers configured for the particular machine to perform the identified set of service operations on the set of data messages.