External injection of cloud based network functions into network services
View Patent ↗Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for providing an API description of an external network service and using the API to integrate the external service into a network. An embodiment operates by receiving, from a service provider, a description of an application programming interface (API), transmitting a call to the service provider using the API for creating a new instance of a service and transmitting to the service provider a traffic flow upon which the service will be applied.
1. A computer-implemented method for integrating external services into a network, comprising:
receiving, from a service provider, a description of an application programming interface (API);
generating, based on a traffic flow, an API call to create a new instance of a service provided by the service provider, such that the call is formatted as specified by the description, the traffic flow being a data flow addressed to a destination;
transmitting, to the service provider, the API call to instantiate the service;
prior to transmission of the data flow to the destination, transmitting, to the service provider, the traffic flow to be processed by the service; and
after the traffic flow is processed by the service, receiving, from the service provider, the traffic flow to forward on to the destination.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the description of the API comprises variables representing parameters of the traffic flow.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the call comprises parameter values substituted in the place of the variables.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the description of the API comprises a format for creating the service.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the description of the API comprises a format for transmitting the traffic flow.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, from a network client, an instruction to initiate the service with the service provider,
wherein the transmitting the API call is responsive to receiving the instruction.
7. The method of, claim 1 , wherein the service provided by the service provider comprises at least one of a firewall, an intrusion detection system, a WAN acceleration system and a flow monitoring system.
8. A system for integrating external services into a network, comprising:
an API registration module that receives, from a service provider, a description of an application programming interface (API);
a service call module that:
generates, based on a traffic flow, an API call to create a new instance of a service provided by the service provider such that the call is formatted as specified by the description;
transmits, to the service provider, the API call;
transmits, to the service provider, the traffic flow; and
receives, from the service provider, the traffic flow, wherein the service provider has applied the service to the traffic flow.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the description of the API comprises variables representing parameters of the traffic flow.
10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the call comprises parameter values substituted in the place of the variables.
11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the description of the API comprises a format for creating the service.
12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the description of the API comprises a format for transmitting the traffic flow.
13. The system of claim 8 , further comprising:
a client portal module that receives, from a network client, an instruction to initiate the service with the service provider,
wherein the transmitting the API call is responsive to receiving the instruction.
14. The system of claim 8 , wherein the service provided by the service provider comprises at least one of a firewall, an intrusion detection system, a WAN acceleration system and a flow monitoring system.
15. A tangible computer-readable device having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, causes the at least one computing device to perform operations comprising:
receiving, from a service provider, a description of an application programming interface (API);
generating, based on a traffic flow, an API call to create a new instance of a service provided by the service provider, such that the call is formatted as specified by the description;
transmitting, by the one or more processing devices, to the service provider, the API call;
transmitting, to the service provider, the traffic flow; and
receiving, from the service provider, the traffic flow, wherein the service provider has applied the service to the traffic flow.
16. The computer-readable device of claim 15 , wherein the description of the API comprises variables representing parameters of the traffic flow.
17. The computer-readable device of claim 16 , wherein the API call comprises parameter values substituted in the place of the variables.
18. The computer-readable device of claim 15 , wherein the description of the API comprises a format for creating the service.
19. The computer-readable device of claim 15 , wherein the description of the API comprises a format for transmitting the traffic flow.
20. The computer-readable device of claim 15 , further comprising:
receiving, from a network client, an instruction to initiate the service with the service provider,
wherein the transmitting the API call is responsive to receiving the instruction.
21. The computer-readable device of claim 15 , wherein the service provided by the service provider comprises at least one of a firewall, an intrusion detection system, a WAN acceleration system and a flow monitoring system.