Patent ID: 8776082

Claim:
A method, comprising: detecting a client request from an application supported by an application services platform including at least one application server to access an external service, the client request including authentication information for authenticating a client executing the application; identifying the client from the authentication information; determining whether the client request complies with at least one rule specific to the identified client, including: identifying statistics associated with the client request, wherein the statistics are gathered from tracking previous usage of the external service; gauging an amount of usage of the external service required by the client request, based on the statistics gathered from tracking previous usage of the external service; comparing the amount of usage of the external service gauged to be required by the client request to a predetermined amount of usage of the external service allowed by one of the rules specific to the client; and determining that the client request does not comply with the one of the rules specific to the client when the amount of usage of the external service gauged to be required by the client request exceeds the predetermined amount of usage of the external service allowed by one of the rules specific to the client; and determining that the client request complies with the one of the rules specific to the client when the amount of usage of the external service gauged to be required by the client request does not exceed the predetermined amount of usage of the external service allowed by one of the rules specific to the client; authenticating, by the application services platform, the client request using the authentication information; invoking the external service on behalf of the client in response to a determination that the authentication information is valid and the determination that the client request complies with the one of the rules specific to the client; and sending the client request to the external service.