Control of overload in communications networks.

摘要

This invention relates to a method and apparatus for throttling request messages to an overloaded database and for throttling overload traffic to a particular destination. The database sends a gap value to the sources of messages or traffic; following any message or call to the destination, no messages will be sent or calls to the destination completed for one gap interval. In a departure from the prior art, the gap interval, a function of the number of request messages flushed or overload calls to the destination is not recurrently calculated anew, but is instead recurrently adjusted from its previous value. Advantageously, this arrangement permits a relatively stable value of the gap to be maintained and reduces overhead for preliminary processing of request messages that cannot be handled.