System and Method for Data Plane Signaled Packet Capture in a Service Function Chaining Network

Presented herein are service-function chaining techniques that enable data plane signaling of a packet as a candidate for capture at various network nodes along a service function path of a service function chain. That is, a capture signal is embedded within the respective packet that carries a user traffic. The signaling occurs in-band, via the data plane, such that classification of the packet for capture beneficially occurs, at the ingress node of the network, once to which subsequent network nodes along a service function path are signaled to capture or further inspect the packet for capture. Service function chaining treats service functions as resources with associated attributes available for scheduled consumption to which selective traffic are steered according to a policy construct to the requisite network-service resources.