30. A computer accessible medium, comprising program instructions configured to implement: receiving a plurality of packet flow rules from multiple network services, wherein each packet flow rule comprises a packet filter and an action list including one or more prioritized actions, wherein each network service has a priority, and wherein the packet flow rules from each network service comprise a priority expressed either by longest prefix, or ordered precedence; generating a unified rule set according to the received packet flow rules, wherein said generating comprises: identifying conflicts between rule pairs, wherein each rule pair includes a higher priority rule and a lower priority rule; and resolving the identified conflicts according to a priority relationship between the higher priority rule and the lower priority rule.
39. The computer accessible medium of claim 30 , wherein the network services comprise one or more of the following: a firewall service; a service level agreement monitoring service; a load balancing service; and a fail over service.