diff --git a/core/api/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/codec/JsonCodec.java b/core/api/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/codec/JsonCodec.java
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+++ b/core/api/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/codec/JsonCodec.java
@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+ * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+ * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+ * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+ * specific language governing permissions and limitations
+ * under the License.
+ */
+package org.onlab.onos.codec;
+
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode;
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ArrayNode;
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ObjectNode;
+
+import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.List;
+
+/**
+ * Abstraction of a codec capable for encoding/decoding arbitrary objects to/from JSON.
+ */
+public abstract class JsonCodec<T> {
+
+    /**
+     * Encodes the specified entity into JSON.
+     *
+     * @param entity entity to encode
+     * @param mapper object mapper
+     * @return JSON node
+     * @throws java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException if the codec does not
+     *                                                 support encode operations
+     */
+    public abstract ObjectNode encode(T entity, ObjectMapper mapper);
+
+    /**
+     * Decodes the specified entity from JSON.
+     *
+     * @param json JSON to decode
+     * @return decoded entity
+     * @throws java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException if the codec does not
+     *                                                 support decode operations
+     */
+    public abstract T decode(ObjectNode json);
+
+    /**
+     * Encodes the collection of the specified entities.
+     *
+     * @param entities collection of entities to encode
+     * @param mapper   object mapper
+     * @return JSON array
+     * @throws java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException if the codec does not
+     *                                                 support encode operations
+     */
+    public ArrayNode encode(Iterable<T> entities, ObjectMapper mapper) {
+        ArrayNode result = mapper.createArrayNode();
+        for (T entity : entities) {
+            result.add(encode(entity, mapper));
+        }
+        return result;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Decodes the specified JSON array into a collection of entities.
+     *
+     * @param json JSON array to decode
+     * @return collection of decoded entities
+     * @throws java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException if the codec does not
+     *                                                 support decode operations
+     */
+    public List<T> decode(ArrayNode json) {
+        List<T> result = new ArrayList<>();
+        for (JsonNode node : json) {
+            result.add(decode((ObjectNode) node));
+        }
+        return result;
+    }
+
+}