The Differentiated Services Architecture defines the mechanisms that are needed to offer multiple classes of services in an IP network. While this model offers significant scaling advantages over the signaling-oriented approach of Integrated Services, the management of a differentiated services network remains a complex problem. Since the operation of a differentiated network involves numerous access routers, core routers and servers, a consistent operation is difficult to achieve by independently configuring each device. In this paper, we explore a scheme to enable a network administrator to manage and configure DiffServ networks from a central location and also abstract away the specific details of device configuration, and allow him/her to express the management of the network in terms of application-oriented performance metrics. This leads to a simplification of network management task, which can be exploited to support business needs of an enterprise network, such as honoring Service Level Agreements provided to its customers.