Patent ID: 7760643

Claim:
A method for managing network resources of a DiffServ-enabled MPLS network by dynamically adapting network policies, said network having a plurality of service classes and Traffic Trunks (TT) and being capable of providing alerts and performance statistics for each of the plurality of service classes and for each of the TTs, said method comprising: identifying a bandwidth allocation policy that determines the amount of bandwidth to be allocated to individual TTs in the network, a ratio policy that determines the relative, maximum amount of bandwidth that can be assigned to individual DiffServ classes on each link, and an overbooking policy that determines the degree of traffic multiplexing in individual DiffServ classes on TTs between two edge locations of a service provider network; generating an alert by a network performance monitor when a TT utilization rate violation is detected; if the alert indicates under-utilization of a TT in one of the plurality of service classes, examining the performance statistics of the under-utilized service class, and, if the available link bandwidth of the service class along the TT path is lower than a predetermined low threshold value, updating the overbooking policy; if the alert indicates high utilization of a TT in one of the plurality of service classes and if there is available link bandwidth between the ingress and egress of the TT, updating the bandwidth allocation policy only if it does not violate the ratio policy; if the alert indicates high utilization of a TT in one of the plurality of service classes and if there is not sufficient available link bandwidth, determining whether current DiffServ ratio policy corresponds to the actual traffic demands for each service class in the network, and if current DiffServ ratio policy corresponds to the actual traffic demands for each service class in the network, updating the ratio policy, otherwise updating the overbooking policy.