FIG. 3 illustrates exemplary elements of a request 351 for dedicated connectivity from a client, according to one embodiment. As shown, the request, which may be generated at a client device 148 and may be formatted in accordance with the interface provided for connectivity-related services by connectivity coordinator 114, comprises location information 360, bandwidth requirement 361, availability requirement 363, multi-path requirement 365, client network equipment information 367, and additional specifications 368. Not all these elements may be included in a connectivity request; any combination or subset of these and other elements may be included in the requests in various embodiments. In implementations where an API similar to the requestDirectConnection API described above is used, some or all of the request elements may be provided as fields of a ConnectionSpecification object or its equivalent.
The location information 360 may include details of a physical location at which the dedicated connectivity is desired: for example a street address where a client-side router 142 currently exists or where such a client-side router may need to be set up, e.g., with the help of a third-party network service provider. In some cases the client may simply list one or more cities or even states where portions of the client network 162 are located and request the connectivity coordinator 114 to provide a set of possible sites where a physical connection could be set up to serve the client network.
