System and method for providing throttling, prioritization and traffic shaping during request processing via a budget service

• US 7,895,353 B2
• Filed: 08/08/2008
• Issued: 02/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Jansson, Andreas E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chea; Philip J
• Application Number:
  US12/188,397
• Publication Number:
  US 20090219940A1
• Time in Patent Office: 928 Days
• Field of Search: 709/232, 709/233, 710/29, 710/60
• US Class Current: 709/233
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2425 for supporting services specification, e.g. SLA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2433 Allocation of priorities to traffic types
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements

Abstract

A network gateway application is described that provides throttling, prioritization and traffic shaping for incoming requests from client applications. A request is received by a plug-in manager component of the gateway application. The plug-in manager can then invoke the budget service in order to determine a current available budget for the request. The budget can be computed according to a service level agreement for the service provider, application or network node. The requests can be of high or low priority. If the budget is greater than a specified priority threshold value, the low priority requests can be denied, while the high priority requests can be processed as long as there is some available budget left. If the budget for the request has reached the restricted level, the request can be denied and optionally enqueued to a traffic shaping queue to be processed at a later time.

Claims

1. A method for providing traffic throttling via a budget service, said method comprising:

receiving, at a gateway, one or more incoming requests from an application associated with a service provider, the request to be processed by a network node of said gateway;

determining, by said gateway, a budget for the application, wherein the budget for the application reflects current request rate being sent by the application based on traffic history;

determining, by said gateway, a budget for the service provider, wherein the budget for the service provider reflects current request rate being sent by the service provider based on traffic history;

determining a budget for a network node in the gateway, wherein the budget for the network node reflects current request rate being processed by the network node based on traffic history; and

throttling the incoming requests at the gateway according to each of;

the budget for the application, the budget for the service provider and the budget for the network node;

wherein throttling the incoming requests according to the budget for the application and the budget for the service provider further includes;

determining whether the budget for the application and the budget for the service provider are available; and

if available, allowing the request to be processed and decreasing the budget for the application and the budget for the service provider accordingly, otherwise denying the request from being processed;

wherein throttling the incoming requests according to the budget for the network node further includes;

determining a priority for each of said incoming requests, the priority being based on a service level agreement;

processing said incoming requests if the budget for the network node in the gateway is over a guarantee threshold;

rejecting the incoming request of low priority if the budget for the network node in the gateway is under said guarantee threshold; and

processing the incoming requests of high priority unless the budget for the network node in the gateway is below an available limit.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

rejecting the incoming requests of high priority if the budget is under the available limit.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein processing each request further includes:

decreasing the budget after allowing the processing of the request.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a stateful network tier and a stateless access tier wherein the incoming request is first received at the access tier and wherein the budget service is invoked within the network tier.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the budget service tracks historical data such that the budget is compensated for lost request traffic that was not processed during a network failure.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein invoking the budget service further includes:

transmitting a service provider identifier, an application identifier and a node identifier to the budget service; and

receiving a budget for each of the service provider, the application and the node from the budget service.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein determining a priority of each incoming request further includes:

assigning said incoming requests into a plurality of queues, each queue being of different priority, length and weight; and

selecting, by a dispatcher, requests from the plurality of queues in order of priority.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein rejecting the incoming request further includes:

enqueuing the incoming request to a traffic shaping queue in order to be processed at a later time.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the incoming requests are initiated by a service provider application that provides telecommunication services to clients via a network gateway.

10. A system that provides a network gateway for throttling request traffic, said system comprising:

a client application that initiates a request and transmits the request to the network gateway, said request to be processed by a network node in said gateway, wherein the client application is associated with a service provider;

a plug-in manager executing on a computing device that receives the request and selects an appropriate plug-in for said request; and

a budget service executing on said computing device that is invoked by the plug-in manager wherein the budget service returns a budget for the client application, a budget for the service provider, and a budget for the network node to the plug-in manager in response to the invocation, wherein the plug-in manager throttles the request based on each of;

the budget for the client application, the budget for the service provider and the budget for the network node returned by the budget service;

wherein throttling the incoming requests according to the budget for the client application and the budget for the service provider further includes;

determining whether the budget for the application and the budget for the service provider are available; and

if available, allowing the request to be processed and decreasing the budget for the application and the budget for the service provider accordingly, otherwise denying the request from being processed; and

wherein throttling the incoming requests according to the budget for the network node further includes;

determining a priority for each of said incoming requests, the priority being based on a service level agreement;

processing said incoming requests if the budget for the network node in the gateway is over a guarantee threshold;

rejecting the incoming request of low priority if the budget for the network node in the gateway is under said guarantee threshold; and

processing the incoming requests of high priority unless the budget for the network node in the gateway is below an available limit.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the request is designated as being either a high priority or low priority request.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the budget further includes a specified priority value such that only requests that have been designated as being high priority are allowed to be processed once the budget reaches said priority value.

13. The system of claim 10 wherein once the request is processed, the current available budget is decreased.

14. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a stateless access tier that receives and forwards the request; and

a stateful network tier that receives the request from the access tier and performs the throttling of the request, said network tier having the plug-in manager deployed thereon.

15. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a service level agreement associated with the request, said service level agreement specifying a request limit that is used to compute the current available budget.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the service level agreement is associated with at least one of:

a service provider, an application and a network node.

17. The system of claim 10 wherein if the request is denied processing, said request is assigned to a traffic shaping queue to be processed at a later point in time.

18. The system of claim 10 wherein the budget service tracks historical data such that the budget is compensated for lost request traffic that was not processed during a network failure.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions for throttling request traffic, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the steps of:

receiving, at a gateway, one or more incoming requests from an application associated with a service provider, the request to be processed by a network node of said gateway;

determining, by said gateway, a budget for the application, wherein the budget for the application reflects current request rate being sent by the application based on traffic history;

determining, by said gateway, a budget for the service provider, wherein the budget for the service provider reflects current request rate being sent by the service provider based on traffic history;

determining a budget for a network node in the gateway, wherein the budget for the network node reflects current request rate being processed by the network node based on traffic history; and

throttling the incoming requests at the gateway according to each of;

the budget for the application, the budget for the service provider and the budget for the network node;

wherein throttling the incoming requests according to the budget for the application and the budget for the service provider further includes;

determining whether the budget for the application and the budget for the service provider are available; and

if available, allowing the request to be processed and decreasing the budget for the application and the budget for the service provider accordingly, otherwise denying the request from being processed;

wherein throttling the incoming requests according to the budget for the network node further includes;

determining a priority for each of said incoming requests, the priority being based on a service level agreement;

processing said incoming requests if the budget for the network node in the gateway is over a guarantee threshold;

rejecting the incoming request of low priority if the budget for the network node in the gateway is under said guarantee threshold; and

processing the incoming requests of high priority unless the budget for the network node in the gateway is below an available limit.