Service functions in the chain can include network services, such as load balancer, firewall, intrusion prevention, routing, and so on. The criteria for applying a service chain to a packet or flow are based on the packet or flow attributes that span the OSI layer, such as the physical port, IP address header, transport, and application layer information.

The current release of vCPE supports bridging, policy-based routing (PBR), a cross-connect, and a hybrid method (PBR and cross-connect) of service chaining.