Patent ID: 7843829

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving one or more control plane messages for storage in a queue; executing an operation responsive to an overflow condition, wherein the overflow condition is associated with exceeding a storage capacity of the queue; wherein the operation is inferred to be an overflow indication; tracking a number of overflow indications over a predetermined time period; comparing the number of overflow indications to a pre-set threshold number of overflow indications; determining the queue is experiencing sustained congestion based on the comparison, wherein when a number of overflow conditions exceeds the pre-set threshold number of overflow indications for the predetermined time period, the congestion is determined to be sustained; identifying a source of said sustained congestion wherein identifying the source comprises: extracting message headers from the one or more control plane messages in the queue wherein each message header includes source identification information; storing the message headers in a table; inspecting the message headers to identify one or more sources of the control plane messages in the queue; and identifying a particular source identified either more than other sources in the table or identified in at least a threshold percentage of the message headers in the table as the source of the sustained congestion; and entering a correction phase to respond to said source of said sustained congestion.