Patent ID: 8782211

Claim:
A method comprising: storing, with a network device, data defining a plurality of time slots, wherein the network device includes one or more processors that provide an amount of system processing capacity for each of the plurality of time slots; executing a network communication protocol with the one or more processors; executing a load prediction software module that computes a prediction of a future network communication events that the network device is expected to perform in accordance with the network communication protocol, wherein the load prediction software module computes for each of the predicted future network communication events an amount of system processing capacity required from the one or more processors to complete in accordance with the network communication protocol; and distributing each of the predicted future network communication events across the plurality of time slots to reserve the amount of system processing capacity required to complete each of the predicted future network communication events distributed to each of the plurality of time slots from an amount of available system processing capacity of each of the plurality of time slots without exceeding a threshold associated with the plurality of time slots, wherein the threshold limits utilization of the amount of system processing capacity for each of the plurality of time slots, wherein distributing each of the predicted future network communication events across the plurality of time slots further comprises at least one of changing configuration information of the network device or configuring a network communication to cause the predicted future network communication events to be scheduled to occur in the time slot in which each of the predicted future network communication events is distributed.