Patent ID: 7477600

Claim:
A method of configuring a plurality of network elements linked together by a plurality of links to support real-time applications, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: maintaining a plurality of Quality of Service (QoS) policy templates, wherein maintaining each QoS policy template further comprises associating a class of network elements with a QoS action to perform on a network data packet by a network element that belongs to the class, and the class of network elements is defined by a first constraint set on one or more first properties of the network elements belonging to the class; maintaining a meta-template, comprising associating external information with an associated template of the plurality of QoS policy templates, wherein the external information indicates a second constraint set which contains data that is not intrinsic to any network element on one or more second properties different from the one or more first properties; and automatically configuring the plurality of network elements based at least in part on the meta-template.