USING SERVICE PLANES TO PERFORM SERVICES AT THE EDGE OF A NETWORK

Some embodiments provide novel methods for providing a set of services for a logical network associated with an edge forwarding element acting between a logical network and an external network. In some embodiments, the services are provided using a logical service forwarding plane that connects the edge forwarding element to a set of service nodes that each provide a service in the set of services. The service classification operation of some embodiments identifies a chain of multiple service operations that has to be performed on the data message. In some embodiments, identifying the chain of service operations includes selecting a service path to provide the multiple services. After selecting the service path, the data message is sent along the selected service path to have the services provided. The data message is returned to the edge forwarding element by a last service node in the service path that performs the last service operation and the edge forwarding element performs next hop forwarding on the data message.