Patent ID: 6988133

Claim:
A method of enforcing network quality of service policy information at one or more policy enforcement points, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: receiving active QoS configuration information at a policy enforcement point; receiving new configuration information and storing the new configuration information as an inactive configuration of the policy enforcement point; storing the active QoS configuration information and the inactive configuration in logically separate areas of memory of a network device that serves as the policy enforcement point; determining whether the inactive configuration information is properly functional in combination with the active QoS configuration information; making the new configuration information active in place of the active QoS configuration information only in response to receiving an activation message; wherein the step of receiving new configuration information further comprises the steps of receiving a decision message from a policy decision point that identifies the configuration information as an inactive configuration by a specified flag bit in a message type value in a Context object that forms part of the decision message.