International Business Machines Corporation

Bernardo Pastorelli

Fabio Cerri

Michele Crudele

Claudio Marinelli

Antonio Secomandi

Gianluca Mariani

Francesco Latino

Antonio Perrone

Leonardo Rosati

Alice Guidotti

Jacques Fontignie

Giancarlo Carbone

James Scott Jennings

Luigi Pichetti

Stefano Sidoti

Nicola Milanese

Paolo Salerno

Riccardo Rossi

Domenico Di Giulio

Valerio Bellizia

Giorgio Cognigni

Gaetano Ferrari

Sandro Piccinini

Scot MacLellan

Rosario Gangemi

Tomasz Andrzej Stopa

Rossella De Gaetano

Randa Salem

Bruno Portaluri

Francesco Lupini

Brian Joseph Schlosser

Elia Tufarolo

Marco Mechelli

Claudio Morgia

Pierre-Antoine Queloz

Francesco Censi

Calogero Bufalino Marinella

Methods provide cognitive management of multiple subaccounts wherein processors are configured to determine an expense type for an input of an expense event to a linked account structure that links subaccounts that are each associated to different respective ones of a plurality of group members. In response to determining that the input expense event expense type most-strongly matches an expense type of a nearby in time calendar expense, methods allocate expense costs of the input expense to member subaccounts pursuant to a first expense allocation rule utilized in the nearby calendar event for allocating expenses. In response to determining that the input expense event expense type does not match the expense types of a nearby calendar events, methods further allocate the input expense event costs pursuant to a second expense allocation rule selected as a function matching the input event expense type to behavior data of a member.

Cognitive management of multiple subaccounts

A technique for generating a customized program logic for booting a target system includes determining the hardware devices operatively connected with the target system. A list of identifiers of the determined hardware devices is sent to a server system. The server system selects from a set of drivers for each of the device identifiers in the list at least one driver operable to control the identified device to generate a sub-set of said set of drivers. The server system retrieves a core program logic being free of any drivers of the target system and sends the core program logic and the driver sub-set to the target system. The target system creates the customized program logic using the combination of the core program logic and the driver sub-set.

Customizing program logic for booting a system

A solution is proposed for managing one or more industrial products. A method, computer system, and computer program product for creating a reference model providing a formal representation of reference policies according to reference artifacts and creating corresponding activity models providing a formal representation of activities (to be performed on the industrial products) according to corresponding activity artifacts; alignment indicators indicative of an alignment of the activities with the reference policies are calculated according to a comparison between the corresponding activity models and the reference model.

Managing activities on industrial products according to compliance with reference policies

A cognitive system collects online behaviors of a user and an affinity group of users who are related (e.g. by relationship, or behavioral similarities) to the user. A knowledge base of behavior and sentiment patterns is produced and maintained. If real-time data for the user shifts in behavior and/or sentiment and significantly deviates from established patterns, the system looks for a similar behavior and/or sentiment pattern shift among members of the affinity group. If the affinity group patterns shift in a manner similar to the first user's pattern shift, the cognitive system, in response, updates the knowledge base with information related to the shift, thereby adding knowledge to the long-term patterns. If the cognitive system finds that the user's behavior and/or sentiment pattern shift differs significantly from the affinity group, the system generates an empathy fostering alert message and sends it to one or more recipients.

Empathy fostering based on behavioral pattern mismatch

The invention relates to a method for distributing a software upgrade to client computing devices, the software upgrade being assigned to a software program, the client computing devices being communicatively coupled via a network, a target client of the client computing devices being adapted for executing the software program, the software program being adapted, when executed by the target client, for causing the target client to send via the network a signature specific to the software program, the method comprising intercepting network traffic from the client computing devices. The method comprises of detecting the signature in the intercepted traffic. The method comprises of collecting a network footprint from the intercepted traffic, the footprint being associated with the detected signature, the footprint comprising an identifier of the target client, the detected signature having been received from the target client. The method comprises of using the footprint for distributing the upgrade.

Distribution of a software upgrade via a network

An embodiment of the invention includes a database server system comprising a storage arrangement for storing at least one database and at least one processor operable for receiving a database request over a computer network and accessing the storage arrangement. The processor is further operable for carrying out a monitoring task. The monitoring task determines whether a monitoring description has been stored into the database by the database request. Furthermore, the monitoring task performs a monitoring operation which is specified in the monitoring description. The monitoring operation yields at least one result value. The monitoring task submits a monitoring result request in order to insert the at least one result value into the database. The invention also relates to a computer program product and to a method for performing a monitoring operation on a database server system.

Database server system monitoring

A method for generating a customized program logic operable to control hardware devices of a target system and to boot said target system includes determining the hardware devices operatively connected with the target system. A list of identifiers of the determined hardware devices is sent to a server system. The server system selects from a set of drivers for each of the device identifiers in the list at least one driver operable to control the identified device to generating a sub-set of said set of drivers. The server system retrieves a core program logic being free of any drivers of the target system and complements the core program logic with said driver sub-set to generate the customized program logic. The customized program logic is then deployed to the target system.

In one implementation, the present invention is directed to a method for controlling access to a software application using one or more processors configured by code, the method comprising repeating a usage verification cycle continually during a usage session of the software application, wherein each repetition of the usage verification cycle includes receiving a digital image of an access area used to access the software application, identifying a representation of one or more persons in the digital image, estimating an age of each one of the persons within the digital image, and comparing the estimated age of each one of the persons within the digital image to a predetermined age value provided in a usage policy dataset associated with at least of one of the persons within the digital image. The method further comprises interrupting the usage of the software application in response to the age of at least one of the persons within the digital image exceeding the predetermined age value provided in a usage policy dataset.

Access control of software applications based on biometric identifiers

Mechanisms are provided for automatically expanding a virtual storage of a virtual machine. The virtual machine monitors a usage of the virtual storage of the virtual machine. The virtual machine determines, based on the monitoring of the usage of the virtual storage, whether to expand the virtual storage of the virtual machine. In response to the virtual machine determining to expand the virtual storage of the virtual machine, a virtual machine manager executes one or more operations to expand the virtual storage. The monitoring and determining may be performed by a virtual storage management agent executing within the virtual machine and which may send an expansion request to an authorization engine to request expansion of the virtual storage.

Automatically managing the storage of a virtual machine

A method and system are provided for generating customized program logic operable to control hardware devices of a target system and to boot said target system. The system is connected to one or more target systems via a network, the server system being adapted for: receiving a first list of device identifiers from one of the target systems; automatically selecting, for each of the device identifiers in the received first list, at least one driver operable to control the identified device from a set of drivers, thereby generating a sub-set of said set of drivers; providing a core program logic to the target system; and providing the sub-set of drivers to the target system, wherein a combination of the sub-set of drivers and the core program logic constitutes a customized program logic operable to control the devices of said target system.

A resource management solution for use in a data-processing infrastructure comprising a server data-processing entity and a set of target data-processing entitiesthat is operable for downloading a set of corresponding management policies, executing a verification action indicated in each one of the corresponding management policies for verifying a compliance of the target data-processing entity with the management policy, executing a target-side remediation action indicated in each violated one of the corresponding target-side management policies which the target data-processing entity is not compliant with, for remedying the non-compliance of the target data-processing entity with the violated target-side management policy, sending an indication of a remediation request for each violated one of the corresponding server-side management policies, which each target data-processing entity is not compliant with, and executing by the server data-processing entity, a corresponding server-side remediation action in response to each remediation request for remotely remedying, by the server data-processing entity, the non-compliance of the corresponding target data-processing entity with the corresponding violated server-side management policy.

Policy-based resource management with target-driven remediation on server

A tool for managing device driver aggregation during operating system deployment. The tool receives a request for a device bundle, wherein the request originates from a first target client. The tool determines whether an available driver bundle matches the device bundle, wherein the available driver bundle is a driver bundle stored locally on a second target client. Responsive to a determination that the available driver bundle matches the device bundle, the tool provisions the available driver bundle to the first target client from the second target client.

Device driver aggregation in operating system deployment

Technology for monitoring all resources and services of a distributed computing environment to collect and store information technology (IT) infrastructure resources, task resource usage metrics, and idle times of the environment. A system management task, both manually created by administrators and automatically scheduled, is queued on a management queue to be processed at a later time. When the system management task is removed from the queue, resources required to execute the activity of the distributed computing environment are then requested. The task is authorized to execute if the requested resources and time to complete the activity are available. The resources are then secured and the system management task executed in the distributed computing environment.

Growing community of inventors

L'Aquila, Italy

Bernardo Pastorelli