Adaptive service level accounting system

A network device in a network domain having an ingress node and an egress node, comprising:

• a receiver configured to receive a packet;
• a transmitter configured to transmit the packet;
• a non-transitory memory storage comprising instructions;
• and
• at least one processor in communication with the memory, the receiver, and the transmitter, the at least one processor configured, upon receipt of the packet and upon execution of the instructions, to perform the following steps:
• determine, for the packet, one or more service level objectives defined by a service level agreement by determining an originator of the packet;
• generate a packet contract including one or more packet conditional directives comprising packet processing instructions executable at the one or more network nodes that, when processed by any one or more nodes in the network domain, generate accounting data which enables measurement of the one or more service level objectives, the one or more packet conditional directives generated by instantiating one or more packet conditional directive templates corresponding to the service level agreement, each packet conditional directive template of the one or more packet conditional directive templates including one or more conditions and one or more actions to create the packet processing instructions;
• and
• add the packet contract including the one or more packet conditional directives to the packet at the ingress node before the packet moves to a next node of the network via the transmitter.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer instructions to generate network accounting data for a network domain having an ingress node and an egress node, that configure at least one processor, upon execution of the instructions, to perform the following steps:

• determining, for a packet received at the ingress node, one or more service level objectives of a service level agreement by determining a network client associated with the packet;
• generating a packet contract including one or more packet conditional directives comprising packet processing instructions executable at the one or more network nodes that, when processed by any one or more nodes in the network domain, generate accounting data which enables measurement of the one or more service level objectives, the one or more packet conditional directives generated by instantiating one or more packet conditional directive templates corresponding to the service level agreement, each packet conditional directive template of the one or more packet conditional directive templates including one or more conditions and one or more actions to create the packet processing instructions;
• and
• adding the packet contract including the one or more packet conditional directives to the packet at the ingress node before the packet moves to a next node of the network.