Patent ID: 8274983

Claim:
A cleverness/fairness method for controlling a policy enforcement point (PEP) attached to an edge of a switched network, comprising: applying at the PEP autonomous short-term, application-aware controls to autonomously control admission of corresponding network ingress traffic at the PEP, and applying long-term traffic controls on said corresponding network ingress traffic; wherein applying at the PEP autonomous short-term, application aware controls and applying long-term traffic controls comprises: receiving a new call or session at the PEP; the PEP determining if enough resources are available for the new call or session; admitting the new call or session if the PEP determines that there are enough resources; and requesting from a session/call admission controller (S/CAC) increased reservation resources if the PEP determines that there are not enough resources; using numbers received from the S/CAC for network admission needs, wherein said numbers are updated when a network event results in a loss of resilient bandwidth that affects a traffic class under admission control, and when a surge in traffic exceeds a reserved resource in the PEP to a particular destination; recalculating resources available across said switched network that will minimize adverse impacts on existing sessions and calls by dividing a reservation reduction between multiple paths affected by said loss of resilient bandwidth, wherein the reservation reduction is calculated by subtracting the free bandwidth on the multiple paths determined based on a query of actual utilization of the multiple paths from the loss of resilient bandwidth; and informing each PEP of any new resources made available.