According to one or more embodiments, a method may include obtaining a connection request to communicate with a database. The method may further include determining a predicted wait time for the connection request. The predicted wait time may include a predicted amount of time until a connection with the database will be available to communicate with the database. The method may further include determining whether to shed the connection request before a connection request timeout time. The determination as to whether to shed the connection request may be based on whether the predicted wait time exceeds the connection request timeout time.