System and method for software defined deployment of security appliances using policy templates

Abstract

A method includes retrieving, from a memory accessible by a computer, a document comprising a workload definition document that defines an intended virtual configuration to include at least one virtual machine and at least one network appliance to be associated with at least one of the virtual machines in the intended virtual configuration, each network appliance respectively serving a role in the intended virtual configuration of transforming, inspecting, filtering, or otherwise manipulating all the network traffic, before it reaches an intended virtual machine, for purpose other than a data packet forwarding in a virtual configuration. The workload definition document is parsed to extract attributes of each of the network appliances, including one or more security policy to be applied to each network appliance. Configuration data is extracted from the parsed workload definition document that is related to any security policy of any of the network appliances to be deployed. A security template library is accessed to select a security template for each network appliance that will implement the one or more security policy for that network appliance to be deployed.