According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, an approach is provided in which a policy server receives a request for a policy from a requestor. The policy server identifies an initiating virtual machine; the initial virtual machine's corresponding virtual network; and a destination virtual machine. Next, a policy corresponding to sending data from the first virtual machine to the second virtual machine is selected. The policy includes one or more logical references to the virtual network and does not include a physical reference to a physical entity located on a physical network. In turn, a physical path translation corresponding to the selected policy is identified and sent to the requestor.