Patent ID: 7602808

Claim:
An apparatus for managing bandwidth within a distributed data processing system, the apparatus comprising: means for establishing a bandwidth history comprising bandwidth usage data associated with multiple entities within the distributed data processing system, wherein an entity within the distributed data processing system is a user or an application; means for predicting bandwidth usage by the requested action in response to a requested action within the distributed data processing system; means for selecting, by an administrative user, a user to be monitored for bandwidth usage; means for generating a packet filter object containing a packet filtering parameter that identifies the selected user; means for dynamically deploying, in response to a request by the administrative user, packet snooper objects in association with the packet filter object to a set of devices throughout the distributed data processing system; means for executing the dynamically deployed packet snooper objects at the set of devices to monitor bandwidth usage by the selected user with respect to a given device or a given subnet; and means for receiving bandwidth usage data from the dynamically deployed packet snooper objects.