Rate Limit

A rate limit is the number of requests that an application can make within a given time period. Applications generating EDS API requests at a rate more than 10 requests per second may be subjected to throttling.

Throttling

Throttling ensures that EBSCO maintains a high quality of service by preventing any single application from overwhelming EBSCO’s API resources and negatively affecting the experience for all customers.

When an API request has been throttled, an HTTP 429 response code is returned. This is an industry standard throttling signal instructing your application to slow down. The original request that results in an HTTP 429 will not be fulfilled. Should you wish to do so, you may replay the original request after a brief period.

Avoidance

In practice very few customers exceed the EDS API rate limit. Those that do are most often the result of heavy bot crawling activity taking place on their public-facing site. EBSCO requires that public-facing EDS API implementations not forward bot/crawler requests onto EDS API.

If your application receives frequent throttle responses, please review network and access logs for signs of bot/crawler activity. EBSCO recommends blocking bots with a Web Application Firewall (WAF). Not only will this improve your EDS API experience, but it will lower the burden on your application’s own resources.

Should your institution not have the ability to implement a firewall, you may opt-in to using EBSCO’s WAF to block bots on your behalf. This will require sending additional details with each EDS API request so EBSCO’s WAF can identify bots for you. Please refer to Bot Detection and Blocking for more details.

Higher Limits

Should you feel your application requires more than the standard EDS API rate limit, please reach out to your EBSCO representative to discuss alternative options.