Patent ID: 8392571

Claim:
A system for allocating bandwidth in a network to a plurality of traffic classes, the system comprising: a network manager, the network manager comprising a processor to: determine a bandwidth utilization for each traffic class of the plurality of traffic classes, each traffic class having a first bandwidth allocation included in one or more routing tables accessible by one or more routers; calculate a second bandwidth allocation for each traffic class based on the first bandwidth allocation of a respective traffic class of the plurality of traffic classes and the determined bandwidth utilization for the respective traffic class; determine an amount of total unused network bandwidth based on the second bandwidth allocations for all the traffic classes; recalculate the second bandwidth allocation for each traffic class to include allocating a share of the determined amount of total unused network bandwidth to the second bandwidth allocation of between at least some of the traffic classes; and replace the first bandwidth allocation for each traffic class with the second bandwidth allocation for the respective traffic class in the one or more routing tables accessible by the one or more routers in the network to include the recalculated second bandwidth allocations, wherein the one or more routers enforce the recalculated bandwidth allocations for each traffic class.