Network prediction in a policy-based IP network

In a quality of service (QoS) enabled network, the Internet service providers (ISPs) need to define the network requirements for the customers by defining a set of policies. Every time a new customer gets added or removed or when a customer's resource requirements change, the administrator needs to modify the policies installed on the routers/servers in the network. However, these modifications will affect the traffic flowing in the network and in turn might take away some of the existing customers' resources. Therefore, there is a need to predict how changing the policies will affect the performance of the existing traffic flows in the network. We present a mechanism for predicting whether adding, removing or changing a policy will degrade the performance of the traffic flows belonging to the previous customers. The network administrator can use this information to decide whether such modifications to the policies are desired.