Patent ID: 7979549

Claim:
A computer system, comprising: a) a server comprising a server computer-readable medium having stored thereon policy data comprising quality of service policy data; and b) at least one client computer connectable to the server, the at least one client computer comprising a hardware processor and a client computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon: i) a data structure; ii) a computer-executable component adapted to: obtain first quality of service policy data from the server and additional quality of service policy data from a source different from the server; derive information defining at least one characteristic for transmission of a datagram by the client computer, comprising processing the first quality of service policy data and the additional quality of service policy data; and store the derived information in the data structure; iii) a computer-executable application component adapted to generate a message; and iv) a computer-executable operating system component adapted to receive the message from the application component and transmit one or more datagrams associated with the message at a rate selected based on the at least one transmission characteristic defined in the data structure: wherein the first quality of service policy data comprises an enterprise quality of service policy and the additional quality of service policy data comprises a client quality of service policy, and wherein processing the first quality of service policy data and the additional quality of service policy data comprises: determining whether the client quality of service policy conflicts with the enterprise quality of service policy; and applying the client quality of service policy only when determined that the client quality of service policy does not conflict with the enterprise quality of service policy: wherein the source different from the server comprises a source selected from a group consisting of: a user of the client computer, the computer-executable application component installed on the client computer and a network administrator.