System and method for addressing immense, long-standing problem of bandwidth management, for example, in enterprise networks, VPNs, real-time and stored video services, mobile applications, wireless networks, and cloud computing applications. Described features include an automatic closed-loop control system infrastructure encompassing multiple time-scales and performing control actions optimized to the extent possible with respect to administrator-provided performance metrics. One aspect utilizes available or innovatively accessible means of session and QoS control (settings in configuration files, gateway APIs, QoS parameters, application bit-rate settings, etc.) within the context of practical multiple-vendor products in evolving multiple-service networks. Another aspect utilizes available or innovatively accessible means of session and QoS observations (values in reporting log files, gateway APIs, network monitoring, etc.) within the context of practical multiple-vendor products in evolving multiple-service networks. Traffic-measurement controlled adaptive reservations for distributed myopic single-service gatekeepers effectively shapes the permitted state-space boundary over a range of arbitrary curvatures.