International Business Machines Corporation

Timothy L Braun

Douglas George Murray

Peter J Yablonsky

Beverly M Fassett

A method and system for generating a plurality of concurrent solutions for a corresponding plurality of service requests each having one or more service types. The method comprises the steps of defining a set of said service types and a sequence of activities for each said service type; and for each said service request, configuring a workflow of said activities from said service types in each said service request. The method comprises the further steps of defining owners of said activities in each said workflow and a schedule for performing said activities whereby said owner and schedule are defined using load balancing; and performing said activities and monitoring completion of said activities and said load balancing.

Configurable application integrating service request and fulfillment process

A system previously cloned with an operating system and a collection of applications has personal configuration data customized for the user receiving the system by a configuration tool. When the configuration tool is used in an interactive mode, a dialog displays the existing configuration and allows the installer or user to modify and save it. When the configuration tool is used in a non-interactive mode, that is, for migration, the machine configuration information is obtained from or put to an operating system independent configuration data file without using the configuration dialog. In interactive mode, a user dialog is displayed with the list of all the supported applications that are found to be installed on the system. Selecting one of the listed applications brings up an application dialog including input fields for each of the configuration items for that application. Configuration data can be imported from or exported to the configuration data file . This allows an installer to export from an old system and import into the new one when hardware is being upgraded. Also, the import and export feature is used to automate configuration and information gathering.

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Susquehanna, PA, United States of America

Timothy L Braun