Method and apparatus of storing policies for policy-based management of quality of service treatments of network data traffic flows

A method of selectively establishing a quality of service value for a network device, comprising the steps of:

• receiving application information that defines one or more traffic flows generated by an application program, including information identifying one or more points at which an application generates the traffic flows, from a first individual having responsibility for managing enterprise applications in the network;
• receiving device QoS information that defines one or more quality of service treatments that the network device may apply to data processed by the network device, from a second individual having responsibility for managing the network;
• based on the device QoS information and the application information, determining one or more processing policies that associate the traffic flows with the quality of service treatments;
• creating and storing one or more mappings of the application information to the quality of service treatments that may be used to generate the quality of service value when the application program generates traffic flows.

A computer-readable medium having recorded thereon one or more sequences of instructions for integrating a network with policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices, wherein execution of the one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• creating and storing information structures representing one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices;
• creating and storing application information that associates one or more traffic flows generated by an application program, including information identifying one or more points at which an application generates the traffic flows;
• receiving device QoS information that defines one or more quality of service treatments that the network device may apply to data processed by the network device;
• based on the device QoS information and the application information, determining one or more processing policies that associate the traffic flows with the quality of service treatments;
• creating and storing one or more mappings of the application information to the quality of service treatments that may be used to generate the quality of service value when the application program generates traffic flows.