Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Other

Workman Nydegger

Eric Benjamin Watson

Brett David Brewer

Oliver Hurst-Hiller

Raman Chandrasekar

Lingan Satkunanathan

Sally K Salas

Eddie L Mays

Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec

Mai-Ian Tomsen Bukovec

Kannan C Iyer

Michael Todd Kramer

James Charles Finger, Ii

Natasa Milic-Frayling

Ralph Sommerer

Christopher D Payne

Bjorn Benjamin Levidow

Alireza Farhangi

Kanchuki Sarma

Eric C Kool-Brown

Edward K Tremblay

James C Finger, Ii

Susan Theresa Dumais

Neil Scott Fishman

Israel Hilerio

Darren Arthur Shakib

Thomas Keane

Leszek Mazur

Kenneth Alan Moss

Brendan Power

David Aaron Snelling

Murali Krishna Sangubhatla

Saurab Nog

Jeanine E Spence

Murali Vajjiravel

Nicholas A Whyte

Janine Crumb

Bama Ramarathnam

Lee Linden

Eytan D Seidman

Zhiyi Xie

Randall J Macbeth

Gary James Purchase

Krishna Kumar Sunkammurali

Ryan Randal Elliott

Bernard Pham

Marcelo Calbucci

Steven Yao

Sreeram Krishnan

A cloud management system is described herein that provides the ability for an application to span two or more clouds while allowing operation, management, and troubleshooting of the distributed application as a single application. The system provides infrastructure that communicates across datacenters for execution and for centralizing knowledge of instances of an application that are running at different locations. The infrastructure provided by the system monitors both the application and connections between the clouds, with intelligence to know if issues are within the application or because of the connection between the clouds. The system coordinates management functions across multiple cloud platforms/locations. Thus, the cloud management system creates a single monitoring and troubleshooting interface and knowledge and execution fabric across multiple clouds so that applications spread across multiple clouds can be monitored, managed, and debugged more easily.

Cross-cloud management and troubleshooting

Described is a technology by which a remote network (or local) service is monitored for failure, e.g., by determining whether data corresponding to operation of the service achieves a threshold. When a threshold is achieved that indicates that the service has failed, the service is automatically deactivated for use with a local workload, and the workload switched to use a second service or system having functionality similar to that of the failed service. The second service may be monitored for failure, as may the failed service to determine when it is again operational. In this manner, a remote primary service may have another local or remote secondary service/system automatically substituted for it when it fails, and be restored for use when it returns to acceptable operation.

Service resiliency within on-premise products

A query for a help system includes data about a user system and a task that the user is attempting. The query may be used by a search engine to generate relevant results to aid the user. The user system data may include configuration data about hardware and software. The task data may be derived from the current state of a device, or from operational history that may be developed from a single user or a group of users. The query may have a mechanism to weight various keywords or components of the query and a feedback system may adjust the weights for future queries.

Query generation using environment configuration

A cloud migration system is described herein that provides capacity management and disaster recovery by detecting peak load conditions and automatically moving computing to another computing resource (and back) and by providing computing across two or more clouds and moving completely to one in the case of a disaster at one site. The system monitors loads within a datacenter and detects a threshold that indicates that the current load is nearing the datacenter's capacity. Upon detecting that the threshold will be reached, the system facilitates an orderly move of at least some datacenter load to another datacenter or cloud-based resources. The system can also be used as a disaster recovery architecture at a datacenter/network level to manage fast workload transition in case of disaster. Thus, the system allows enterprises to build smaller and more efficient datacenters that leverage other resources for rare extra loads.

Cross-cloud computing for capacity management and disaster recovery

A method, system, and computer-accessible medium are provided for optimizing search result listings in a search engine user interface. The system and method provide an automated way of promoting and demoting the placement of a search result listing between more or less desirable locations, based on the listing's performance in a given placement. Promoting and demoting placements is based on a threshold performance for the listing against which the actual performance of a listing is measured. The threshold performance may be advantageously varied to accommodate different revenue and relevance goals for a particular search engine or portion of the search engine's market.

System and method for optimizing search result listings

Described is a technology by which a user interface page outputs security status information obtained from network-wide and/or network client security components. This allows for simultaneous evaluation of the state of various network-wide and client security components, such as antimalware state, anti-spam state, firewall state, client program update state, and state data from a remote security service. Network security page logic couples to network-wide security components and client security components to obtain security state data for each. A user interface associated with the network security page logic lists the security components and the current security status for each, such as via an icon that changes its appearance to reflect the current state. Interactive mechanisms for launching system-wide security tasks and/or context-sensitive security tasks related to a selected security component may be provided on the user interface page, as may an interactive mechanism for resolving a security-related issue.

Network security page

Embodiments of the present invention leverage search query result page thumbnails and search query result link content evaluations to provide user-dependent enhanced search query results. This provides a simplified means to inform a user of the relevancy of search query results based on the user's preferences, environment, and profile, etc. The present invention allows a user to more adequately determine the value of the search query result via search query result indicators within the thumbnail and in the proximity of a displayed result link. In one embodiment of the present invention, a thumbnail of a query result link is automatically displayed when the link is selected. This provides a tool to view an entire search result page, eliminating the necessity of scrolling through each page to find relevant search terms. In another embodiment of the present invention, indicators are utilized to inform a user of the content of a search result link.

Systems and methods for enhancing search query results

The subject invention provides for systems and methods that visually enhance paid inclusion listings to facilitate offering a clear and substantial value to paid inclusion advertisers while retaining ordering rights to keep listings relevant to users. More specifically, the systems and methods allow paid inclusion listings to be visually modified at the discretion of the advertiser, the user, and/or the search service provider (e.g., publisher of search results) to facilitate differentiation among advertisers, companies, and the like. The ordering of the enhanced paid inclusion listings is not compromised based on the number or type of enhancement selected by the paid inclusion customer. A search service provider or search result publisher ('service provider') can offer a plurality, or at least one, of different types of enhancements to paid inclusion customers ('advertisers') to affect the rendering of any paid inclusion listing to the user.

Paid inclusion listing enhancement

Context-based user behavior data is collected from a search mechanism. This data includes, for a given query, user feedback (implicit and explicit) on the query and context information on the query. A predictive pattern is applied to the context-based user behavior data in order to produce predicted user satisfaction data. Data mining techniques may be used to create and improve one or more predictive patterns. Predicted user satisfaction data can be used to monitor or improve search mechanism performance, via a display reporting the performance or identification of any queries with a shared characteristic and sub-par user satisfaction. A dynamically-improving search mechanism uses the predicted user satisfaction data to improve the performance of the search mechanism.

Automated satisfaction measurement for web search

Extensibility computer servers and extensibility applications can be managed. Extensibility computer servers and extensibility applications can be discovered using a management application on a management computer server. An extensibility agent can be installed on an extensibility computer server, and used to provide status information. Tasks can be created for managing extensibility computer servers and extensibility applications. Entity groups representing extensibility computer servers and extensibility applications can be displayed and selected. Extensibility computer servers and extensibility applications can be displayed based on the selection of an entity group. Task templates associated with a selected entity group can be displayed.

Management of extensibility servers and applications

Tasks for managing a network can be displayed in a priority task list. Tasks can be selected for inclusion based on rules, such as rules relating to best practices. The rules can be applied against network status, usage status, user profiles, and the like. Upon selection of a user interface element in the priority task list, an appropriate user interface for accomplishing the task can be displayed.

Priority task list

Computer server installation images can be created by installing and configuring software, such as an operating system and an application, on a computer server with deployment neutral settings and then imaging the server. A plurality of computer servers can be installed using a plurality of computer server installation images. A first server can be installed with a first image, and software installed from the image can be configured with deployment specific settings. A second server can be installed with a second image, and software installed from the image can be configured with deployment specific settings.

Integrated computer server imaging

A system for reporting and/or displaying errors in a system that affect end-user tasks includes mechanisms for gathering, interpreting and displaying application status information in a convenient display. In one implementation, for example, distributed application programs in a system are configured to provide status reports (e.g., positive, negative, pending) to a centralized reporting service. The centralized service stores the status information in a database. An event interpreter module queries the database to identify the status of certain application components that affect or otherwise implicate performance of generalized end-user tasks, such as sending/receiving email, logging-in to the network, accessing the internet, remote computer management, or the like. A graphical user interface can then display this information to the administrator in a way that immediately indicates what end-user tasks might be affected by failure or correct execution of a given application component, as well as suggested corrective action as needed.

Correlating complex errors with generalized end-user tasks

Targeted user interfaces of managed applications can be displayed in a number of ways. Targeted user interfaces can be displayed, at a management computer server, based on task templates associated with tasks selected in a user interface of a management application running on the management computer server. Targeted user interfaces can be displayed, at a management computer server, based on a chosen task template associated with a task selected in a user interface of a management application running on the management computer server. A task template can be chosen from one or more task templates associated with a selected task. Objects can be displayed in a user interface of a management application, and based on a selection of an object, tasks can be displayed.

Targeted user interface fall-through

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Eric Benjamin Watson