Patent ID: 7237026

Claim:
A network device to administer a set of points of presence in a network, comprising: a port to allow reception of a shared resource request related to one of the set of points of presence across a network from a customer policy server for access to a shared pool of network access points in a network by the one of the set of points of presence; a storage to store shared resource data; and a processor to: access the shared resource data in response to the shared resource request; determine if the shared resource request is grantable based upon the shared resource data, wherein the shared resource data includes a number of available shared network access points in a shared resource pool and at least one shared resource policy; transmit an acceptance of the shared resource request back to the customer policy server to allow the one of the set of points of presence to access a resource in the shared resource pool if the shared resource request is grantable; update the shared resource data to include the granted shared resource request; and if the shared resource request is denied, transmit a message back to the customer policy server.