1. A system for providing enhanced application program performance and network utilization in a network, the network having a current network state, the system comprising: a modeling component having at least one processor operative to execute at least one program out of at least one memory to model an affinity-network topology that represents a logical combination of a network topology associated with the network and an affinity topology, the affinity topology specifying policies and attributes that describe communications between a plurality of application components; and a central controller operative to receive information pertaining to at least one of the affinity topology and the affinity-network topology, to compute one or more forwarding topologies based at least in part on at least one of the affinity topology and the affinity-network topology, each forwarding topology identifying one or more network segments for forwarding traffic through the network, and to provide the forwarding topologies for use in arriving at a forwarding configuration for the network as a function of the current network state.