Patent ID: 7694007

Claim:
A method to manage forwarding of requests for information from an agent to a remote management entity, the method comprising: forwarding a set of requests from the agent to the remote management entity for servicing by the remote management entity; calculating a current load value corresponding to a relative burden placed on the remote management entity to service the forwarded set of requests; while the remote management entity services the set of requests, receiving a new request to be forwarded from the agent to the remote management entity; selectively forwarding the new request to the remote management entity depending on the current load value associated with servicing the forwarded set of requests; in response to detecting that forwarding the new request to the remote management entity would overburden the remote management entity, queuing the new request at the agent for forwarding the new request to the remote management entity at a later time; receiving an indication based on a message received from the remote management entity that the remote management entity completed servicing of at least one request in the forwarded set of requests; and in response to receiving the indication, forwarding the new request to the remote management entity for servicing, wherein calculating the current load value includes: determining a respective weight value for each corresponding request in the set of requests, each respective weight value indicating a relative burden placed on the remote management entity to service a corresponding request forwarded to the remote management entity; and summing respective weight values associated with each request in the set of requests to produce the current load value, the current load value being a numerical value whose magnitude indicates the relative burden on the remote management entity to service previously forwarded requests, a first weight value associated with a corresponding first request in the set of requests being different than a second weight value associated with a corresponding second request in the set of requests.