Interconnected hardware infrastructure resource control

A physical network node controls allocation and/or deallocation of resources of an interconnected hardware infrastructure. The physical network node determines a number of requests currently queued at a first service node of a plurality of serially-connected service nodes at a current time. The plurality of serially-connected service nodes supports a packet flow using resources of the interconnected hardware infrastructure. The physical network node also determines a packet flow rate of the packet flow into the first service node. The physical network node also determines a future time to control allocation or deallocation of a resource of the interconnected hardware infrastructure to a second service node of the plurality of serially-connected service nodes based on the determined number of requests and the determined packet flow rate. The physical network node controls allocation or deallocation of the resource to the second service node at the future time.