Patent ID: 8839047

Claim:
A client device that sends a request to a server via a network in a distributed computing system, the client device comprising: a timer for timing a request time duration substantially including a period of time that the client device is waiting for results to be received via the network from the server in response to the request sent by the client device; a network interface coupled to the network for sending the request to the server and receiving the results from the server; and a processor coupled to the timer and the network interface; wherein, after receiving the results from the server, the processor is configured to compare the request time duration with a request time threshold, and to automatically control the network interface to issue one or more alert messages to a network operation center (NOC) via the network when the request time duration is greater than the request time threshold; and the processor is further configured to dynamically calculate the request time threshold according to historic request time durations timed by the timer for a plurality of previous requests sent by the client device; wherein the previous requests sent by the client device are of a plurality of types; and the processor is further configured to dynamically calculate the request time threshold according to historic request time durations of only previous requests of a same type as the request.