US Patent 11036538 Providing services with service VM mobility

Some embodiments provide a method for migrating a service machine between two hosts. The method configures a first host (1) to gather service machine data associated with the service machine executing on the first host and (2) to send the gathered service machine data to the second host. Each host executes a software forwarding element to implement a distributed forwarding element (DFE) that implements a dedicated service forwarding plane that forwards data messages associated with guest machines to the services machines. The method configures the second host to use the received service machine data to deploy the service machine on the second host and to connect the deployed service machine to the DFE. The method configures the DFE to forward data messages associated with a guest machine executing on a third host, and addressed to the service machine to the second host instead of the first host.