What Are Cloud API Rate Limits? Detailed Explanation

Cloud service providers like Microsoft and Google set rate limits on their API calls to prevent abuse or overuse of the service. When you use cloud APIs in your application, you should understand their rate limits.

Throttling limits the number of API calls or operations within a time window to prevent the overuse of resources. Throttling scenarios can occur when you perform large amounts of calls or bandwidth utilization that exceed the set rate limits.

Read the article to learn more about API rate limit constraints, and best practices to tackle API throttling during cloud migration.

Key Takeaways:

  • Throttling limits the number of calls and operations made by apps on behalf of a user to prevent resource overuse.
  • Manage throttling by reducing the number of concurrent requests and avoiding request spikes.
  • CloudFuze manages API requests by batching transfers, API request rate management, and automatic retrying of failed requests.

What is API Rate Limiting?

Rate limiting is a mechanism that cloud APIs use to regulate several requests that another app/software can make in a specific time. Rate limiting helps ensure the flow requests doesn’t overwhelm the service. Rate limiting sets a cap on the speed and volume of API calls.

Most applications don’t handle rate limiting correctly. When the API starts returning 429 responses, the typical app either crashes, shows an error to the user, or silently loses data.

How Do Cloud Providers Enforce API Rate Limits? API Rate Limits in Microsoft 365

When a throttling threshold is exceeded, Microsoft Graph limits further requests. It
returns HTTP status code 429 Too Many Requests and the requests fail. It returns a suggested wait time in the response header of the failed request.

If there are several requests, all request types are throttled. The most common cause of throttling is when a large number requests across all applications in a tenant. Throttling can also occur when a large number of requests from a particular application across all tenants.

API Rate Limits in Google Workspace

Here are API quota categories in Google Workspace:

API quota categories Quotas
Queries per day Allows up to 100,000 queries per day.
Group description, maximum size You can enter a group description of up to 4,096 characters.
Group name, maximum size A group’s name can have up to 60 characters.
defaultMessageDenyNotificationText The notification text can be up to 10,000 characters.
maxMessageBytes The default maximum message size is 1 MB.

If any API request fails, an HTTP status code response will be generated. An HTTP status of 403 has error information indicating which API quotas have been exceeded.

Per API Rate Limits in Box

Here are a few rate limits within the Box API.

  • General API calls – 1000 API requests per minute, per user
  • Uploads – 240 file upload requests per minute, per user
  • Search – Allows 6 searches per second, per user, to the search endpoint. Two additional limits are applied on top of the basic rate limit
    • 60 searches per minute, per user
    • 12 searches per second, per enterprise
  • Box Sign – Allows you to create and resend sign request such as 100 requests per minute, per user. Get sign request allows 1000 requests per minute, per user.

When an application hits a rate limit, the API gives a HTTP status code of 429 Too Many Requests.

Dropbox Sign API Request Limits

Whenever a request is sent to the Dropbox Sign API, whether it’s a GET, PUT, DELETE, or POST request, it counts as an API request. The number of requests you can send per minute depends on the endpoint:

  • Standard API endpoints: 100 requests per minute
  • High tier API endpoints: 25 requests per minute
  • Test mode: 10 requests per minute.

API Rate Limits in The Context of Cloud Migration

API rate limits play a major role during your cloud migration because most migrations rely on APIs to move data between the source (like Slack, Google Workspace, etc) and the destination environment. Every cloud provider enforces limits on how many API calls can be made within a given time window to protect infrastructure from overload.

During high-volume migration, these limits can throttle data transfer speed. This can cause unexpected delays. Hence, ensure you choose a migration platform that implements rate-limit handling strategies such as request throttling, parallel processing across multiple API tokens, and intelligent queuing.

Failing to adhere to API rate limits during migration planning can cause API throttling, which, in turn, leads to longer project timelines, incomplete data transfers, and downtime. So, it is essential to choose enterprise-grade migration tools such as CloudFuze Migrate, which helps you avoid API throttling issues.

Best Practices for Managing API Throttling During Your Cloud Migration

Here are API rate limiting best practices that you can follow during your cloud migration. If the API you use supports rate limiting, use rate limiting information sent by the API in your application to ensure that your app doesn’t exceed the API’s rate limits.

Divide the number of users equally and migrate them in batches. Avoid immediate retries, as each request counts against your usage limits. Ensure that you have sufficient API calls to ensure a seamless transfer.

If you get throttled, and the API sends a response with a Retry-After header, wait for the specified time before you send another request. Optimize API calls by fetching only the data you need and using batch requests if supported by the API. Optimizing helps you reduce the number of resources required to process the response and stay within the rate limits.

Overcome API Limitations During Your Cloud Migration with CloudFuze

With CloudFuze as your migration partner, avoid API limitation-related challenges and ensure a smooth migration. Our tool helps you avoid API throttling and helps you maintain enterprise-grade security.

Request a quote tailored to your migration requirements today!

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is API rate limits and endpoints?

An API Endpoint is a specific URL where a server receives requests for resources. API Rate Limits are rules that restrict how many requests a client can send to those endpoints within a given timeframe.

2. What strategies can I use to manage Cloud API rate limits during bulk migrations?

Migrating in batches is one of the best ways to avoid API throttling as it ensures usage of API calls within the permitted limits. If you are already facing API throttling issues, wait for the next call window to start. The wait time varies from APIs of one cloud provider to another.

3. Are there specific rate limits for SharePoint and OneDrive APIs?

Yes. SharePoint and OneDrive APIs use a dynamic rate limit system based on resource units. Exceeding these limits results in HTTP 429 (“Too Many Requests”) or HTTP 503 (“Server Too Busy”) responses.

4. What is the Google Drive API rate limit?

There is a limit of 1,000,000 quota units per minute per project. If you exceed a quota, you’ll receive a 403: User rate limit exceeded HTTP status code response. Additional rate limit checks on the Drive backend might also generate a 429: Rate limit exceeded response. If this happens, you should use an exponential backoff algorithm and try again later.

About the Author: Bhavani Asok

Bhavani Asok at CloudFuze aligns her technical content writing expertise with all-things cloud migration to help businesses make strategic decisions in their cloud migration journey.