Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Stefan Keir Gordon

John Raymond Justice

Ross David Heeter

Robert Bryce Johnson

Stephen John Butler

Darrin Alan Veit

William A Dollar, Jr

Dave Lalor

Joshua Boehm

Denver Maddux

Systems and methods are provided for optimizing allocation of client devices, such as gaming devices, to different available data centers and servers, such as gaming servers, within a data center. The allocation maintains a satisfactory user experience while balancing costs and resource usage. Embodiments of the invention match a client to a data center and server based on a set of criteria related to the client device, user of the client device, game or application the user desires to play, available data centers for supporting the client device, and conditions of the network between the client device and data center. An allocation algorithm may be used to determine resource-efficient allocation. In one embodiment, a bidding process is employed wherein a client and data center are matched based on bids received from data centers. In one embodiment, allocation is periodically evaluated to determine if reassignment to another data center is needed.

Assigning a player to a machine

The present describes a traffic routing system to establish a connection with a primary service location, receive a list of service location peers from the primary service location, execute a performance test of the primary service location and each of the service location peers, identify a best performing service location based at least in part on the performance test, and update a database with results of the performance test of the primary service location and each of the service location peers. The traffic routing system may use business rules to expand the criteria to identify the best performing service location. The business rules may include weights that prioritize certain performance characteristics of corresponding service locations including bandwidth cost, energy cost, or idle capacity.

Effective service node traffic routing

Embodiments establish duration estimates for tasks associated with media content ingestion, such as in application or game production. A content ingestion system receives a content submission request from a publisher. The request identifies a media content type that has a plurality of associated tasks. Based on previous submissions from the publisher, duration estimates for the tasks are generated and adjusted based on historical transaction data associated with other publishers (e.g., global averages). The duration estimates are provided to the publishers along with, for example, start and end dates for the tasks presented on a calendar or other workback schedule.

Generating task duration estimates for content ingestion

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Stefan Keir Gordon