Techniques are disclosed herein for managing network bandwidth in a distributed system having multiple endpoints that upload data to a central server or server cluster. One embodiment provides a computer-implemented method that includes receiving a logical topology of the network that is determined based on network measurements. The method further includes generating a tree having links of the logical network topology as nodes, and allocating bandwidth during a traversal of the tree to obtain a bandwidth allocation scheme for the endpoints uploading data. In addition, the method includes controlling bandwidth consumption by the endpoints based on the determined bandwidth allocation scheme.