Abstract: Techniques are provided for fallback authorization routing. A merchant processor may receive authorization requests from one or more merchant systems. These authorization requests may be to authorize a transaction. The merchant processor may transmit these authorization requests over a first communication channel to an acquirer processor, which may then forward the requests to a payment network. If the merchant processor determines that the acquirer processor is not receiving the authorization requests, or is otherwise unavailable, the merchant processor may, as a fallback, transmit the authorization requests directly to the payment network through a second communication channel, thereby bypassing the acquirer processor. When the merchant processor receives some indication that the acquirer processor is available to process authorization requests, new authorization requests can be transmitted to the acquirer processor via the first communication channel.

Abstract: Overload conditions affecting a processor of a network switch or the like are substantially eliminated, and the processing of traffic is gradually allowed to increase, by inserting, and then monitoring one or more probes which are placed into a queue of the processor. During a given measurement interval, if the number of probes exceeds a threshold then an overload condition exists. This condition is subsequently reduced using “multiplicative decrease” techniques. Conversely, if the threshold is not exceeded and there is little or no chance an overload condition can quickly reappear, traffic is allowed to once again be processed gradually using “additive increase” techniques.

Abstract: Overload conditions affecting a processor of a network switch or the like are substantially eliminated, and the processing of traffic is gradually allowed to increase, by inserting, and then monitoring one or more probes which are placed into a queue of the processor. During a given measurement interval, if the number of probes exceeds a threshold then an overload condition exists. This condition is subsequently reduced using “multiplicative decrease” techniques. Conversely, if the threshold is not exceeded and there is little or no chance an overload condition can quickly reappear, traffic is allowed to once again be processed gradually using “additive increase” techniques.