A method and apparatus for providing a resource allocation policy in a network are disclosed. For example, the method constructs a queuing model for each application. The method defines a utility function for each application and for each transaction type of each application, and defines an overall utility in a system. The method performs an optimization to identify an optimal configuration that maximizes the overall utility for a given workload, and determines one or more adaptation policies for configuring the system in accordance with the optimal configuration.