Patent ID: 7231455
Filing Date: 2007-06-12
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for throttling transmission of gathered system monitoring and asset data within a communications network in a customer computing environment, comprising: providing a communications relay within the communications network, wherein the communications relay includes a downstream interface for transmitting data messages to a downstream device and a data transmission throttle for controlling the downstream interface to transmit data at less than about a data transfer threshold defining an allowable data volume per transmission period; receiving the gathered system monitoring and asset data at the communications relay for forwarding to the downstream device; preparing a data message from the received data for transmittal by the downstream interface; with the data transmission throttle, determining whether transmittal of the data message would exceed a data transfer threshold for a current transmission period, the data transfer threshold defining a quantity of data and the determining comprising finding a size of the data message and comparing the data message size with the data transfer threshold for the current transmission period, and wherein the determining comprises identifying the data message as having a low priority or a high priority and wherein when the data message is identified as having a high priority excluding the data message size from a quantity of data sent for the current transmission period and not performing the comparing of the data message size with the data transfer threshold by the data transmission throttle; and based on the determining, transmitting the data message with the downstream interface when the data transfer threshold is not exceeded or waiting a delay period and then transmitting the data message with the downstream interface.