Monitoring and limiting requests to access system resources

摘要

Systems, apparatuses and methods for preventing requests to access a system's resources from having a negative impact on higher priority data processing operations being performed by the system. The invention is directed to preventing the number of calls made by a merchant's applications through an application programming interface (API) for access to the lower priority services of a merchant service provider from having a negative impact on the ability of the service provider to perform the processing necessary to support higher priority services. The invention provides a user interface that may be used by a merchant or the service provider to configure the operation of a “throttle” that is designed to generate an alert when the number of calls by a merchant application for access to a specific service provider function or application exceeds a value or limit, where exceeding the value or limit may indicate a malfunction of the merchant's application or an attack by a malicious agent.

主权项

1. A method of processing requests at a merchant service provider system, the requests received from merchant-side applications of a merchant, the method comprising:
providing, by the merchant service provider system, the merchant with an interface having controls; receiving an input selecting at least one of the merchant-side applications of the merchant, wherein the controls of the interface permit the merchant to select the at least one of the merchant-side applications of the merchant; receiving an input assigning a limit on a number of requests from the at least one of the merchant-side applications of the merchant that the merchant service provider system will process, wherein the controls of the interface permit the merchant to assign the limit on the number of requests from the at least one of the merchant-side applications of the merchant that the merchant service provider system will process; enabling, by the merchant service provider system, the merchant to allocate data processing resources of the service provider system to higher-priority services by permitting the merchant to assign lower limits on the number of requests for lower-priority services that the merchant service provider system will process; storing the limit assigned to the at least one of the merchant-side applications of the merchant in a data storage element accessible by the merchant service provider system; monitoring, by the merchant service provider system, incoming requests from the merchant-side applications of the merchant, wherein the monitoring includes: processing the incoming requests from the merchant-side applications; identifying merchant-side application that generated each incoming request; and counting the incoming requests from the at least one of the merchant-side applications of the merchant; and generating, by the merchant service provider system, an alert if the number of requests from the at least one of the merchant-side applications exceeds the limit.