Patent ID: 8730994

Claim:
A method of a service provider allocating network resources in a network computing environment, the method comprising: the service provider allocating, by a hardware computer system, an amount of the network resources to a group of clients; the service provider receiving, by the hardware computer system, a request from a client for a quantity of the network resources; the service provider negotiating, by the hardware computer system, with the group of clients and offering the group of clients an incentive to reduce the amount of the network resources allocated to the group of clients in order to accommodate the request; and the service provider reallocating, by the hardware computer system, some of the resources from the group of clients, based on the negotiating, to accommodate the request; and wherein: each of the group of clients provides a business value representing a value that would be lost due to reductions in the resources allocated to the each client; and the reallocating is based on the business values provided by the group of clients.