In various embodiments a traffic class manager is a resource within a virtualized computer systems trusted entity (i.e. a hypervisor, trusted partition, etc.) which maps requirements from a platform management and associated network capabilities onto an SR-IOV adapter in order to appropriately allocate SR-IOV adapter and network resources to the virtualized computer partitions. In various embodiments the traffic class manager defines network traffic classes that meet the objectives of a platform administrator based on the capabilities of the SR-IOV adapter and the network attached to the adapter ports. Once the traffic classes are defined, in various embodiments, the traffic class manager enforces the assignment of a traffic class to a virtual interface queue pair within a partition.