Config API Limits

This topic explains the limits we impose on API calls you make to our Config API.

Tip: Separate from Ingest API Limits? Yes, the Config API limits are separate to the limits imposed for the Ingest API.

Request Rate Limits

On the Config API, we impose the following request rate limits:

• Source IP Address. Individual host machines can send up to 20,000 requests over a rolling 5-minute period. (An average of 66 requests per second)
• m3ter Organization. Each m3ter Organization can send a maximum of 50 requests per second from any number of source IP addresses.

If you exceed either of these rate limits, requests are throttled and an HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) error response is returned:

• Source IP address rate limit - 429 is returned until the total number of requests in the rolling 5-minute period drops below 20,000.
• m3ter Organization rate limit - 429 is returned for the remainder of the second in which throttling has occurred.

You’ll need to retry requests when throttling has finished.

Date Explorer Request Rate Limits

Requests made to the Data Explorer are subject to tighter request rate limits:

• Generally - 1 request per second.
• Burst - 10 requests per second.

If you exceed either of these rate limits, requests are throttled and an HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) error response is returned.

Tip: Burst limit for Data Explorer requests? We allow short bursts of higher TPS to allow us to accommodate occasional spikes from customers. For example, if the sustained rate is 50 TPS, we might set a bucket capacity (N) of 150. This means that you can do up to 150 TPS for 1s (and empty the bucket), but in the next second you’ll only be able to do 50 TPS because that is all that has been refilled. If they drop below 50 TPS for a period of time, the bucket will refill back up to full capacity allowing another spike. This is usually referred to as “burst capacity”.