Patent ID: 7787381

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a memory to store a first user policy comprising a first authentication credential and a first policy parameter for a first user device, and a second user policy comprising a second authentication credential and a second policy parameter for a second user device, wherein the first policy parameter and the second policy parameter each comprises at least one of a quality of service (QoS) parameter, a bandwidth parameter, or a service parameter for the first user device or the second user device respectively; a policy manager to provide the first and second policies to an authentication server to authenticate the first and second user devices to a communication network; a path identifier to identify a plurality of candidate end-to-end communication paths through the communication network between the first and second user devices, wherein the path identifier is to identify the plurality of communication paths for a first network scenario, and to identify a second plurality of candidate end-to-end communication paths through the communication network between the first and second user devices for a second network scenario; a performance modeler to develop a plurality of values for respective ones of the plurality of communication paths, wherein each value represents at least one of a performance or an ability of the respective communication path to satisfy the first and second policy parameters, and wherein two or more of the plurality of values indicate that the respective communication path satisfies the first and second policy parameters, wherein the performance modeler is to develop the plurality of values for the first network scenario, and to develop a second plurality of values for respective ones of the second plurality of communication paths, wherein each of the second plurality of values represents how the respective communication path satisfies the first and second policy parameters; and a path manager to select a one of the plurality of communication paths based on the plurality of values, and to configure the communication network to transport data between the first and second user devices on the selected one of the plurality of communication paths˜wherein the policy manager is to select the one of the plurality of communication paths for the first network scenario, to select a one of the second plurality of communication paths for the second network scenario based on the second plurality of values, and to select between the selected one of the plurality of the plurality of communication paths and the selected one of the second plurality of communication paths based on a comparison of a current state of the network and the first and second network scenarios.