Abstract: Systems, methods and computer products for throttling client access to servers. Exemplary embodiments include a method to throttle client access to servers, the method including maintaining local state information on active and pending requests, receiving a delay call from a client, calculating a delay, incrementing a pending operation count, p, returning the delay value to the client, decrementing the pending operation count, p, and incrementing an active operation count, a, in response to a start of an operation by a client, decrementing the active operation count in response to a operation finishing, recording a timestamp to record when a last pending operation should start, and resetting the pending operation count to 0, in response to a next delay request being received after the timestamp is recorded.