International Business Machines Corporation

German Sergio Goldszmidt

Kiyoshi Maruyama

Jean A Lorrain

Dinesh C Verma

Tamar Eilam

Marc Hubert Willebeek-LeMair

Stephen Edwin Smith

Clement Richard Attanasio

Karen Appleby

James R Kraemer

Robert R Friedlander

Eric Michel Levy-Abegnoli

Donald W Schmidt

Arun Kwangil Iyengar

Jeffrey Mark Nick

Nataraj Nagaratnam

Murthy V Devarakonda

Liana Liyow Fong

Donna N Dillenberger

Indrajit Poddar

Anthony Joseph Nadalin

Daniel Manuel Dias

Brian Jay Vetter

Rajat Mukherjee

Michael E Baskey

Richard Pervin King

Ta-Hsin Li

Donald Philip Pazel

Jen-Yao Chung

Guerney Douglass Holloway Hunt

Dah-Haur H Lin

Srirama Mandyam Krishnakumar

Kirill M Osipov

Robin Lougee

Walter Charles Dietrich, Jr

John J E Turek

Guerney Douglass Hunt

Tl-Hsin Li

Kenneth Sau-yee Hon

Guerney Douglas Hunt

Karen Appleby-Hougham

Guerney-Douglass Holloway Hunt

A computer implemented method, program product, and/or system allocate human resources to a cohort. At least one attribute held by each member of a group of human resources is identified. A request is received, from a planned cohort, for multiple human resources that collectively possess a set of predefined attributes, wherein no single human resource possesses all of the predefined attributes. The set of human resources that satisfies the request is identified and assigned to the planned cohort.

Generating candidate inclusion/exclusion cohorts for a multiply constrained group

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for aggregating database and component logic authorization rules in a multi-tier application. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for aggregating database and component logic authorization rules in a multi-tier application system can include aggregating role-based authorization rules for both a persistence layer and a logic layer of a multi-tier application in a unified policy, distributing the unified policy to both the persistence layer and the logic layer of the multi-tier application, transforming the unified policy into respectively a set of role based permissions for the persistence layer and a set of role based permissions for the logic layer, and applying the set of role based permissions for the persistence layer in the persistence layer, and the set of role based permissions for the logic layer in the logic layer of the multi-tier application.

Database authorization rules and component logic authorization rules aggregation

A method and structure for dynamic allocation of servers to customers in a server farm which supports a flexible contract structure such that the total revenue of the farm is maximized. The invention creates a resource allocation plan based on a long term forecast for the server farm, taking into account traffic, number of servers, customers' contracts and revenue optimization algorithms. The plan is then modified as indicated by short term forecasting using currently monitored load metrics to reallocate to maximize revenue for particular time periods.

Methods and apparatus for dynamic allocation of servers to a plurality of customers to maximize the revenue of a server farm

Servers are allocated for use in one of a plurality of compute-resources or for stand-by storage in a free-pool. Server load metrics are selected (e.g., ping-reply time or CP utilization) for measuring load in the servers. Metrics are measured for the servers allocated to the compute-resources. Several metrics can be measured simultaneously. The metrics for each compute-resource are normalized and averaged. Then, the metrics for each compute-resource are combined using weighting coefficients, producing a global load value, G, for each compute-resource. The G value is recalculated at timed intervals. Upper and lower thresholds are set for each compute-resource, and the G values are compared to the thresholds. If the G value exceeds the upper threshold, then a server in the free-pool is reallocated to the compute-resource; if the G value is less than the lower threshold, then a server is moved from the compute-resource to the free-pool.

Method and system for dynamically allocating servers to compute-resources using capacity thresholds

A method (and system) for managing and controlling allocation and de-allocation of resources based on a guaranteed amount of resource and additional resources based on a best effort for a plurality of customers, includes dynamically allocating server resources for a plurality of customers, such that the resources received by a customer are dynamically controlled and the customer receives a guaranteed minimum amount of resources as specified under a service level agreement (SLA). The best effort is defined in the SLA as a range of service to be provided to the customer if server resources are currently available.

Method and apparatus for dynamically adjusting resources assigned to plurality of customers, for meeting service level agreements (SLAs) with minimal resources, and allowing common pools of resources to be used across plural customers on a demand basis

A method (and system) for managing and controlling allocation and de-allocation of resources based on a guaranteed amount of resource and additional resources based on a best effort for a plurality of customers, includes dynamically allocating server resources for a plurality of customers, such that the resources received by a customer are dynamically controlled and the customer receives a guaranteed minimum amount of resources as specified under a service level agreement (SLA).

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DYNAMICALLY ADJUSTING RESOURCES ASSIGNED TO PLURALITY OF CUSTOMERS, FOR MEETING SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS (SLAS) WITH MINIMAL RESOURCES, AND ALLOWING COMMON POOLS OF RESOURCES TO BE USED ACROSS PLURAL CUSTOMERS ON A DEMAND BASIS

A method (and structure) in a computer network of controlling the admittance of requests to at least one processing component, includes differentiating the type of received requests based on the message content in each request. Each request is admitted only if the differentiated type meets at least one criterion for admission.

Method, system, and program products for distributed content throttling in a computing environment

A highly scalable system and method for supporting (mim,max) based Service Level Agreements (SLA) on outbound bandwidth usage for a plurality of customers whose applications (e.g.,Web sites) are hosted by a server farm that consists of a very large number of servers. The system employs a feedback system that enforces the outbound link bandwidth SLAs by regulating the inbound traffic to a server or server farm. Inbound traffic is admitted to servers using a rate denoted as Rt(i,j), which is the amount of the icustomer's jtype of traffic that can be admitted within a service cycle time to servers which support the icustomer. A centralized device computes Rt(i,j) based on the history of admitted inbound traffic to servers, the history of generated outbound traffic from servers, and the SLAs of various customers. The Rt(i,j) value is then relayed to one or more inbound traffic limiters that regulate the inbound traffic using the rates Rt(i,j) in a given service cycle time. The process of computing and deploying Rt(i,j) values is repeated periodically. In this manner, the system provides a method by which differentiated services can be provided to various types of traffic, the generation of output from a server or a server farm is avoided if that output cannot be delivered to end users, and revenue can be maximized when allocating bandwidth beyond the minimums.

Highly scalable system and method of regulating internet traffic to server farm to support (min,max) bandwidth usage-based service level agreements

An interactive method that optimizes telephone usage for a call or set of calls, given the call criteria, and makes it easy for the consumer to use the carrier that achieves this minimum cost when the consumer is ready to make the call.

Telephone call optimizer

A TCP-connection-router performs encapsulated clustering by dividing each encapsulated cluster into several Virtual EC (VECs), dynamically distributing incoming connections within a VEC based on current server load metrics according to a configurable policy. In one embodiment, the connection router supports dynamic configuration of the cluster, and enables transparent recovery which provides uninterrupted service to the VEC clients.

System and method for providing dynamically alterable computer clusters for message routing

An affinity-based router and method for routing and load balancing in an encapsulated cluster of server nodes is disclosed. The system consists of a multi-node server, wherein any of the server nodes can handle a client request, but wherein clients have affinity to one or more of the server nodes that are preferred to handle a client request. Such affinity is due to state at the servers either due to previous routing requests, or data affinity at the server. At the multi-node server, a node may be designated as a TCP router. The address of the TCP router is given out to clients, and client requests are sent thereto. The TCP router selects one of the nodes in the multi-node server to process the client request, and routes the request to this server; in addition, the TCP router maintains affinity tables, containing affinity records, indicating which node a client was routed to. In processing the client request, the server nodes may determine that another node is better suited to handle the client request, and may reset the corresponding TCP router affinity table entry. The server nodes may also create, modify or delete affinity records in the TCP router affinity table. Subsequent requests from this client are routed to server nodes based on any affinity records, possibly combined on other information (such as load).

Affinity-based router and routing method

A routing apparatus is located at an outbound &ldquo;edge&rdquo; of an administrative domain or at an inbound &ldquo;edge&rdquo; of an ISP or other network facility. The apparatus, which is preferably implemented in software, includes a &ldquo;dispatcher.&rdquo; The dispatcher has a database associated therewith in which information about a &ldquo;current state&rdquo; of the network or some resource therein is collected and maintained. The &ldquo;current state&rdquo; information is generally of two types: quality-of-service (Q-o-S) information associated with transactions involving a particular Web server, or more general network resource availability information. According to the invention, a routing &ldquo;policy&rdquo; is defined at the dispatcher using at least one routing rule having a condition and an action. As service requests arrive at the dispatcher, each of the requests is routed to a destination by testing the current state information against the condition.

Service request routing using quality-of-service data and network resource information

A client-based system for the fault tolerant delivery of real-time or continuous data streams, such as real-time multimedia streams, e.g., live audio and video clips. Multimedia servers are grouped into two or more sets, for example wherein a first set includes one or more primary servers using odd-numbered ports and a second set includes one or more secondary servers using even-numbered ports. The client requests a multimedia stream through a control server or gateway which routes requests to the multimedia servers; and the client receives the stream directly from a selected (primary) server. The client automatically detects load imbalances and/or failures (complete or partial) and dynamically switches to a secondary server in order to continue receiving the real-time multimedia stream with minimal disruption and while maintaining a balanced load across multiple servers in a distributed network environment. The determination can be made based on: the received bit or frame rate (for video); a bit rate or sample rate (for audio); monitoring a delivery rate or for packets arriving out of order: for example using packet numbering mechanisms available in TCP; sequence numbering or time stamp capabilities of RTP (in combination with the User Datagram Protocol (UDP)). In any case, the determination could be based on the rate measurement or monitoring mechanism falling below (or exceeding) some threshold. Alternately, the primary server or the control server could send an explicit distress or switch signal to the client. An explicit signal can be used for example to switch clients in phases with minimal disruption.

Client-based dynamic switching of streaming servers for fault-tolerance and load balancing

Growing community of inventors

Dobbs Ferry, NY, United States of America

German Sergio Goldszmidt