Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.p.

Patrick Allaire

Edgar Circenis

Robert C Lehr

Carol Uno

Paula Zimon Clawson

Christopher K Buss

Matthew Lane

Michael Graf

Winthrop Reis

Arthur F Green

Monica Lasgoity

Cynthia Alderson

Susan C Neidhart

Arif Sardar

Richard Birrell

Anthony Keith Towles

A hardware pay-per-use system and corresponding method allow computer system operators to tailor their hardware utilization to more closely match changing customer demands. The hardware pay-per-use system includes one or more hardware products and a metering mechanism coupled to at least one of the hardware products. The metering mechanism includes a hardware device separate from the hardware products. The metering mechanism acquires metrics data from the hardware products, the metrics data related to an operation at the hardware products. The metering mechanism determines data to report on the operation of the hardware products. A usage repository coupled to the metering mechanism receives the determined data and generates usage reports related to the operation of the hardware products.

Hardware pay-per-use

An apparatus, system, and method allow for capping processor utilization in a computer system. The processors are typically central processing units (CPUs) under control of a system scheduler. The system scheduler controls which of the CPUs will run specific processes. The processes may run according to a predefined priority assigned to each of the processors. A processor bandwidth waster includes a software routine that operates as an infinite loop in one or more of the CPUs. The bandwidth waster may have the highest priority of any process in the computer system such that the bandwidth waster always runs on the CPUs unless a specific action is taken to turn off, or stop, the bandwidth waster. Data are gathered from the CPUs, including time of operation of any bandwidth waster, and the gathered data are used to compute a bill for operation of the computer system.

Capping processor utilization

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Patrick Allaire