What is Service Chain?

In a computer network context, a service chain — or service chaining as it is often referred to — denotes a specific sequence of actions that are applied to automating traffic and data flow between services in a virtual network. Service chains are also used to optimize the usage of network resources to improve application performance by selecting the best routing path. Service chaining typically makes use of several distinct elements including a service template, virtual network, service instance, and service policy.