Patent ID: 7940756

Claim:
A method, comprising: a computer system receiving a request to perform a first task of an application running on an operating system of the computer system, wherein the request is received from a client of the application, wherein the first task includes the computer system originating a transmission of a first set of one or more data packets over a network to a destination computer system, wherein the computer system and the destination computer system are both endpoints coupled to the network via respective network interfaces, and wherein the network comprises one or more devices configured to provide different levels of service to data packets based at least in part on service level indicators included in the data packets; the computer system using a database query to identify a first service level objective associated with the first task; prior to the computer system originating the transmission of the first set of data packets, the computer system making a request for a service level indicator that satisfies the first service level objective; the computer system receiving, from a policy engine running on one or more nodes in the network, a response to the request for the service level indicator, wherein the response includes a first service level indicator that has been generated by the policy engine; the computer system including the first service level indicator within the first set of data packets; and the computer system originating the transmission of the first set of data packets over the network, wherein the originated transmission of the first set of data packets includes the first service level indicator.