Patent ID: 6857025

Claim:
A system for controlling and managing Internet server farm traffic through a plurality of servers, the server farm traffic arriving at a server farm as inbound traffic organized by customer (i) and traffic type (j) and leaving the server farm as outbound traffic, the system being operable to control and manage the outbound traffic in accordance with outbound bandwidth usage-based service level agreements of form (Bmin,Bmax) by computing a target rate (Rt) for each customer traffic type (i,j) that supports the outbound bandwidth usage-based service level agreements of form (Bmin,Bmax) and then admitting a portion of the inbound traffic at an admitted rate (Ra) while rejecting at a rejected rate (Rr) a remaining portion of the inbound traffic that if processed would cause the outbound traffic for the customer traffic tape (i,j) to exceed the target rate (Rt), the system comprising: means for collecting the admitted rate (Ra) of inbound traffic for each customer traffic type (i,j); means for collecting the rejected rate (Rr) of inbound traffic for each customer traffic type (i,j); means for collecting the outbound traffic (B) for each customer traffic type (i,j); means for computing an expected bandwidth usage (b) per TCP connection request for each customer traffic type (i,j); means for using the expected bandwidth usage (b) to compute the target rate (Rt) for each customer traffic type (i,j) that supports the outbound bandwidth usage-based service level agreements of form (Bmin,Bmax); limiter means for admitting inbound traffic based on the target rate (Rt), for rejecting inbound traffic that exceeds the target rate (Rt), and for tracking the volume of admitted inbound traffic (Ra) and the volume of rejected inbound traffic (Rr) for each customer traffic type (i,j); means for relaying the target rates (Rt) for inbound traffic to the limiter means; and means for dispatching the admitted inbound traffic (Ra) to the servers.