Patent ID: 7457870

Claim:
A method comprising discovering, at a network bandwidth management device, one or more web services based on web service invocation messages received at the network bandwidth management device, wherein the network bandwidth management device enforces bandwidth utilization controls on data flows associated with corresponding traffic classes; presenting, in a user interface, one or more of the web service identifiers corresponding to the one or more discovered web services, wherein the user interface allows for selection of one or more web service identifiers; configuring, responsive to selection of a web service identifier, the network bandwidth management device to identify the web service corresponding to the selected web service identifier by accessing an interface definition document defining the attributes of the web service; processing the interface definition document to identify at least one attribute of the web service; creating a traffic class corresponding to the web service; creating at least one matching rule defining an attribute of the web service; associating the at least one matching rule to the traffic class in the network bandwidth management device; subscribing to an update service hosted by a web services registry to automatically receive updates to the interface definition document corresponding to the web service; after receipt of an update to the interface definition document from the web service registry, updating the configuration of the network bandwidth management device traffic based on the update to the interface definition document; at least one traffic class corresponding to the web service; and configuring a network traffic classification mechanism to identify the at least one traffic class based on at least one attribute obtained from the web services definition document.