Patent ID: 8046763

Claim:
A computer implemented method, comprising: determining if servicing a consume request for a resource would cause a threshold rate that corresponds to the requested resource to be exceeded, wherein the consume request is received from one of a plurality of resource consuming isolates that are bound to one of a plurality of resource domains in which one or more respective resource policies for the requested resource are installed, and wherein the consume request specifies a measurable, consumable resource to be consumed during execution of one or more computations of the one of the plurality of resource consuming isolates; and if the threshold rate would be exceeded, then delaying servicing of the request for at least a period of time sufficient to avoid exceeding the threshold rate; wherein the threshold rate is specified in one of the one or more respective resource policies installed in the one of the plurality of resource domains that are bound to the one of the plurality of resource consuming isolates; wherein the one of the plurality of resource domains associates the one of the one or more respective resource policies for the requested resource with the plurality of resource consuming isolates that are bound to the one of the plurality of resource domains; and wherein an isolate is a set of one or more computations that do not share computational state with other computations; wherein said determining and said delaying are performed by a first isolate that monitors and controls resource requests for the resource and that is separate from the implementation of the resource, and wherein the first isolate monitors and controls resource requests for the resource based at least in part on a set of common attributes used to characterize the resource, wherein the set of common attributes is usable to characterize resources with respect to consuming or releasing the resources for a plurality of different resource types.