Patent ID: 8429282

Claim:
A method, comprising: performing, by a computer system that provides services to clients: receiving a plurality of incoming service requests; determining that the computer system is in an overloaded state with respect to the incoming service requests; in response to determining that the computer system is in an overloaded state, throttling incoming service requests by an aggressive amount; subsequent to aggressively throttling incoming service requests, determining that the computer system is no longer in an overloaded state; and in response to determining that the computer system is no longer in an overloaded state: iteratively reducing throttling of incoming requests by an amount less than the aggressive amount by which incoming requests were throttled until an ideal request rate is reached, wherein an ideal request rate is a request rate within a pre-determined range of request rates that comprises a maximum rate at which incoming service requests can be accepted and serviced such that client-specified quality of service expectations are met for all incoming service requests that are accepted and serviced.