Patent ID: 7752629

Claim:
A system for providing an application server with overload protection, comprising: a server including one or more processors, said server configured to receive requests from clients, and including a plurality of workload managers operating thereon, wherein each workload manager is assigned a priority and receives requests according to that priority, and wherein a global overload threshold setting indicates a minimum priority for which the plurality of workload managers accept requests during a possible overload condition; a priority queue operating at the server configured to store the requests until the requests are processed by the plurality of workload managers; a plurality of listeners operating at the server configured to receive state information of the server indicating a possible overload condition of the server; a queuing logic operating at the server that determines the priority of requests being received as determined by the priority of the workload manager each request is directed to, wherein the queuing logic receives the state information of the server from the listeners indicating the possible overload condition, and based on that indication, rejects requests to those workload managers assigned a priority below the global overload threshold, and generates a customizable rejection message which is returned to the calling client of the rejected workload manager.