Determining processing requirements for processing communications in a communication network includes determining non real-time processing requirements for processing the communications based on communication handling statistics obtained from at least one network element, in the communication network, that distributes the communications. Near real-time processing requirements for processing the communications are determined based on at least one of the communication handling statistics and the non real-time processing requirements. At least one of the non real-time processing requirements and the near real-time processing requirements is forwarded to a processing element that processes at least one of the non real-time processing requirements and the near real-time processing requirements.