Patent ID: 7836201

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a new flow request, the new flow request for requesting provisioning of a flow between a computer and a server; identifying a path of one or more network elements between the computer and the server, each of the one or more network elements comprising an interface; determining whether provisioning the flow between the computer and the server violates a constraint, wherein the constraint is based on at least one of: a large flow oversubscription factor, wherein a large flow is a flow larger than a specified percentage of a maximum interface rate of an interface; and a small flow oversubscription factor, wherein a small flow is a flow smaller than a specified percentage of a maximum interface rate of an interface; in the event the constraint is not violated, updating an oversubscription factor and available bandwidth for the interface of each of the one or more network elements in the path based at least in part on the new flow request; and in the event the constraint is violated, determining whether a second path exists between the computer and the server.