Patent ID: 7764615

Claim:
A method, in a network cluster having a plurality of cluster member computing devices, for distributing a global rate limit among members of the network cluster, the method comprising: forming, by a reservation coordinator cluster member of the network cluster, a hierarchical tree structure comprising a plurality of levels, a plurality of nodes, and at least one branch, wherein one of the nodes is a root node occupying a highest level of the tree structure, and wherein all nodes descending from the root node occupy one or more lower levels of the tree structure and represent one or more resources provided by the cluster members; and distributing, by the reservation coordinator cluster member, the global rate limit among the cluster members by assigning the global rate limit to the root node, and assigning a first set of rate limits, each less than the global rate limit, to nodes residing in a first level directly below the root node, wherein: a given branch of the tree structure connects a parent node in a given level to a child node in a level directly below the given level, a rate limit assigned to any parent node within the tree structure is equivalent to the sum of the rate limits assigned to all children nodes descending from the parent node, and the global rate limit and rate limits assigned to the parent and child nodes of the hierarchical tree structure represent a rate limit for admission control of traffic directed to the one or more resources provided by the cluster members, represented by the corresponding parent or child node, using a rate limiter bucket algorithm.