Patent ID: 7958141

Claim:
A method comprising: using one or more computer processors, determining, for each of a plurality of time periods, a rate of a plurality of queries to a data source, the plurality of queries associated with a term; associating a cost with a normal-to-deviated query state transition and a deviated-to-normal query state transition; assigning a normal query state or a deviated query state to a particular query for a particular time period of the plurality of time periods, the assigning being based on a particular query rate of the rate of the plurality of queries for the particular time period and the cost of the normal-to-deviated query state transition and the deviated-to-normal query state transition; and identifying a query burst during the plurality of time periods based on assignment of the normal query state or the deviated query state to each of the plurality of queries, the query burst having the normal query state, the normal-to-deviated query state transition, and the deviated query state during a plurality of associated time periods.