Patent ID: 9178827
Filing Date: 2015-11-03
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: maintaining a rate control mechanism for a source of requests, the rate control mechanism including a token bucket represented by a counter; the bucket accumulating tokens at a given rate until the counter reaches a token bucket burst size; in response to receiving a request, the request associated with a unit of work rate per measure of time, computing a quantity of accumulated tokens as a function of token bucket parameters, wherein the token bucket parameters include the rate at which tokens are accumulated, a burst size of the bucket, time of a last computation, and a quantity of tokens remaining since the last computation; updating the counter on demand, and computing a time for granting the received request based on the updated counter; and servicing the request if the required quantity of tokens are accumulated, and computing a future time when the required quantity of tokens will be accumulated if the required quantity of tokens are unavailable.