US Patent 10097474 Shared rate limiting

A system includes a plurality of rate limiters and a rate limiter management module. The rate limiter management module causes a processor to analyze and compare a plurality of flows each having at least one aggregation attribute, to aggregate a first group of the plurality of flows into a first aggregate flow based on the at least one aggregation attribute, and to assign the first aggregate flow to a rate limiter having at least one membership criterion. The first aggregate flow includes flows having the at least one aggregation attribute that satisfies the at least one membership criterion.