Patent ID: 7990860

Claim:
A method for communicating data over a network to provide quality of service, the method including: performing by at least one processing device, at least: receiving data at a data communication system operating on a node at an edge of a network; determining a network status from a plurality of network statuses based on analysis of network measurements; selecting a mode from a plurality of modes based on the determined network status, wherein each of the plurality of modes corresponds with at least one of the plurality of network statuses, wherein each of the plurality of modes comprises a user defined sequencing rule; prioritizing the data at the data communication system by assigning a priority to the data, wherein prioritizing the data comprises sequencing the data based at least in part on the user defined sequencing rule of the selected mode; determining at least one of an effective link speed and a link proportion for at least one link; metering inbound data by shaping the inbound data at the data communications system for the at least one link; metering outbound data by policing the outbound data at the data communications system for the at least one link; and communicating the data from the data communications system, wherein communicating the data comprises communicating the data based at least in part on at least one of: the priority of the data, the effective link speed, and the link proportion; wherein at least the steps of receiving and prioritizing occur at a transport layer of a protocol stack.