Network application engine

Apparatus and computer program product for a programmable packet processing platform for accelerating network infrastructure applications that have been structured so as to separate the stages of classification and action. A pipeline comprising a collection of elements for handling network packets is established under which respective elements are capable of including multiple entries, and respective entries are capable of defining whether the respective entry matches a respective network packet and at least one corresponding action for handling the respective network packet. Defining whether the respective entry matches a respective network packet comprises defining via a predefined set of identifiers to indicate respective network protocol fields of different network protocols. Exemplary actions include dropping packets, forwarding packets, encrypting packets, decrypting packets, and classification of packet flows.