Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Rahul Arun Chabukswar

Ashish Parikh

Rohan S Lam

Olga Ivanova

Michael Van Snellenberg

Henry Lyons

Jonas Aich Richmeier

Embodiments of the invention provide an ability to associate telemetry data received from different entities, such as guest and/or host machines residing on one or more particular physical computers (e.g., server computers) executing virtualization software. In some embodiments, telemetry data supplied by each entity includes information that identifies, and preserves the anonymity of, the entity (e.g., the computer(s) on which the guest and/or host machine(s) reside(s)). For example, if the entities comprise guest and/or host machines residing on a single computer, the information may comprise a one-way hash of the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the computer. If the entities are guest and/or host machines residing on a group of computers, the information may comprise a one-way hash of a portion of an FQDN for each computer which is common to all computers in the group. If the group of computers belong to a network domain having a globally unique identifier (GUID) (e.g., as employed by Microsoft Active Directory), the information may comprise a one-way hash of a portion of the GUID.

Associating telemetry data from a group of entities

A usage data collection and evaluation mechanism may collect usage information from various sources and summarize the usage information to determine a role for a system. The role and usage information may be transmitted to a centralized server for aggregation and analysis. The collection and transmission of usage data may be governed by and conform to a privacy agreement and may be collected when an end user agrees to such collection. Role determination may be performed using data collected from a single device, multiple devices, or from a network monitoring system. The usage data collection and evaluation mechanism may determine an installed role base and any changes in the installed role base since a previous report.

Automated role based usage determination for software system

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Rahul Arun Chabukswar