International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Kiyoshi Maruyama

Te-Kai Liu

Jean A Lorrain

German Sergio Goldszmidt

Dinesh C Verma

Richard Harold Boivie

Daniel Manuel Dias

Yeong-Chang L Lien

Michael C Greenwood

Halil Burhan Bakoglu

Paul Andrew Moskowitz

Jarir Kamel Chaar

Chatschik Bisdikian

David Alson George

Andy G Lean

Shun-Shing Chan

Chung-wai Yue

Eric Michel Levy-Abegnoli

Charles Steven Lingafelt

Manoj N Kumar

Christos J Georgiou

Colin George Harrison

Nathan J Lee

Steven Edward Millman

Satish Gupta

Shun Shing Chan

Inching Chen

Brian E Carpenter

Lawrence I Lieberman

Mark Mei

Jeng-Chun Janet Chen

Miram Zohar

Lawrence L Lieberman

Karen Appleby-Hougham

Pascal Pol Marie Thubert

Ghung-Wai Yue

The present invention relates to managing connections between one or more data network interfaces and one or more phone interfaces. In one embodiment, a manager process, running on a computer system receives one or more telephone calls from one or more users over one of the phone interfaces and then accesses one or more profiles associated with each of the users. These profiles have one or more service identifiers and one or more interactive response agent (IRA) identifiers associated with the respective user. A menu of the service identifiers is presented to the user. The manager process looks up an agent address of one of the IRAs that is associated with the service identifier selected by the user from the menu and establishes a session with the associated IRA. A two-way communication with the associated IRA occurs during the session.

Dynamically reconfigurable distributed interactive voice response system

The present invention is a computer system and method that manages connections between one or more data network interfaces and one or more phone interfaces. A manager process, running on a computer system having both data and phone network interfaces, receives one or more telephone calls from one or more users over one of the phone interfaces and than accesses one or more profiles associated with each of the users. These profiles have one or more service identifiers and one or more interactive response agent (IRA) identifiers associated with the respective user. A menu of the service identifiers is presented to the user. The system then looks up an agent address of one of the IRAs that is associated with the service identifier selected by the user from the menu and establishes a session with the associated IRA. Having done this a two-way communication with the associated IRA occurs during the session. In this communication, the IRA is capable of passing information to the system from one or more application servers to which the IRA is connected over one or more data networks.

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).

To prevent system crashes, as by denial-of-service attacks, of TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) networks, this invention regulates the volume of TCP connection requests that await service at a TCP/IP connection control table. For this purpose, the usage of the system is monitored on a dynamic basis, the time-out value Tis dynamically computed, and requests that have been awaiting service for a period of time that exceeds Tare removed from the TCP/IP connection control table.

System and method for protecting a TCP connection serving system from high-volume of TCP connection requests

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 system and method for controlling the rates at which application workload, e.g., TCP connection requests, is admitted to a collection of servers, such as a server farm of an application service provider (ASP) that hosts Internet World Wide Web (WWW) sites of various owners. The system and method are intended to operate in an environment in which each customer has a workload-based SLA for each type of application hosted by the provider and used by the customer. The system and method achieve support (minimum, maximum) TCP connection requests for multiple customers and applications. According to one aspect, the system and method guarantee, control and deliver TCP connection-based workload SLA's to customers whose applications are hosted by the server farm with the use of a workload regulator that operates by regulating only new TCP connection request packets while transparently passing existing TCP connection packets and other request packets received for customers. The regulator further operates by regulating the flow of incoming TCP connection requests to each customer business activity application so as to guarantee a level of service previously agreed to each customer (per their respective SLA's) by applying rate admittance to requests and by dropping (or rejecting) requests to guarantee the agreed service levels to the customer's application.

System and method for regulating incoming traffic to a server farm

A system produces of an empirical map of wireless communication coverage through a process of combining information from individual clients to produce a map which is then shared by all of the clients. The wireless coverage map aids in maintaining a reliable communications link. The empirical map is generated by combining information from a group of mobile wireless users. The group may consist of a fleet of trucks, taxicabs, government service vehicles, or the customers of a wireless service provider. The mobile vehicles must be equipped with a GPS device or be located by other means such as triangulation. While vehicles are moving, the quality of wireless communication, e.g., signal strength or communication continuity, is recorded for each vehicle as a function of positions. The data from all of the vehicles is combined to produce the empirical map. The empirical map may be maintained at a central site and subsets of the map replicated for individual vehicles. The map may then be used to direct mobile users to sites of superior communications reliability, warn mobile users when they are out of the service area or are about to leave the service area, or to regulate data communications automatically to stop and restart communications as a mobile vehicle passes through a gap in coverage.

Dual map system for navigation and wireless communication

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

A method and system for controlling and guaranteeing a service level agreement (SLA) based on a communications outbound link bandwidth usage to a plurality of customers having electronic business activity hosted by at least one server as a server farm, includes monitoring the outbound communications bandwidth usage by each customer traffic to determine a level of service being provided to each customer with respect to the agreed service level agreement in each service cycle time per unit of time. The flow of incoming requests to each customer business activity application is controlled so as to guarantee a level of service previously agreed to the customer by queuing requests to the customer and by selectively dropping requests to the customer to guarantee the agreed service levels to the customer. The controlling process controls and guarantees each outbound link usage based service level agreement by controlling the flow of incoming requests to the at least one server.

System and method for enforcing communications bandwidth based service level agreements to plurality of customers hosted on a clustered web server

The present invention is a computer system and method that manages connections between one or more data network interfaces and one or more phone interfaces. A manager process, running on a computer system having both data and phone network interfaces, receives one or more telephone calls from one or more users over one of the phone interfaces and then accesses one or more profiles associated with each of the users. These profiles have one or more service identifiers and one or more interactive response agent (IRA) identifiers associated with the respective user. A menu of the service identifiers is presented to the user. The system then looks up an agent address of one of the IRAs that is associated with the service identifier selected by the user from the menu and establishes a session with the associated IRA. Having done this a two-way communication with the associated IRA occurs during the session. In this communication, the IRA is capable of passing information to the system from one or more application servers to which the IRA is connected over one or more data networks.

A routing table for use with a router in a world-wide network, includes an existing routing table with a multicast-destination (MD) column.

Method and system for creating small group multicast over an existing unicast packet network

A method (and system) of creating a multicast packet by a source node in a world-wide network, includes providing each multicast packet with a predetermined indicator indicating that the packet includes a multicast packet, one of a plurality of multicast destinations being placed in a packet destination field and a list of remaining multicast destinations being provided in a packet header. A conventional router receiving a multicast packet handles it as a unicast packet and routes it in a conventional manner. A multicast-capable router receiving a multicast packet goes through a packet regeneration and routing process, creating multicast packets and/or unicast packets and then routing them using the conventional routing table. A destination node receiving a multicast packet goes through the packet regeneration and forwarding process, creating a multicast or unicast packet depending on the number of destinations in the received multicast packet and bouncing back the regenerated packet to the router to which the node is attached.

System and method for amicable small group multicast in a packet-switched network

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Chappaqua, NY, United States of America

Kiyoshi Maruyama