Patent ID: 8738690

Claim:
A method for implementing a service level agreement in a network, the method comprising: establishing, at a network device, a communication with a Network Credit Server (NCS), the network device and the NCS in the network and the NCS configured to: store a service level agreement of a customer, the service level agreement providing an upper level limit of resources in the network allocable to the customer, and maintain a database of topology information of the network, the topology information including bandwidth capacity information of links in the network; receiving, at the network device, a first plurality of packets associated with the customer and en-route to a destination; transmitting, from the network device to NCS, a request for credit when the first plurality of packets is more than a pre-configured threshold number; thereafter receiving, at the network device, a second plurality of packets associated with the customer and en-route to the destination; and forwarding, by the network device and depending on a status of a reply from the NCS, the second plurality of packets, the reply from the NCS dependent on the service level agreement of the customer and the topology information of the network.