Method and system for providing dynamic hosted service management across disparate accounts/sites
First Claim
1. An automatic method for operating a service provider for the Internet so as to provide dynamic management of hosted services comprising:
- for each of a plurality of customer accounts;
providing a plurality of servers allocated to a common administrative group for that customer account and configured to access software and data unique to that customer account to provide hosted services to the Internet for that customer account;
automatically monitoring each administrative group; and
automatically and dynamically reallocating at least one server from a first administrative group to a second administrative group in response to the automatic monitoring, including;
setting initialization pointers for said at least one server to access software and data unique to the customer account for the second administrative group; and
reinitializing said at least one server such that said at least one server joins the second administrative group.
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Reexamination
Accused Products
Abstract
A hosted service provider for the Internet is operated so as to provide dynamic management of hosted services across disparate customer accounts and/or geographically distinct sites. For each of a plurality of customer accounts, a plurality of individual servers are allocated to a common administrative group defined for that customer account. Each administrative group is configured to access software and data unique to that customer account to provide hosted services for that customer account. The system automatically monitors the performance and health of the servers in each administrative group. At least one server from a first administrative group is automatically and dynamically reallocated to a second administrative group in response to the automatic monitoring. The automatic and dynamic reallocation of servers is accomplished by setting initialization pointers for the reallocated servers to access software and data unique to the customer account for the second administrative group, and then reinitializing the reallocated servers such that the reallocated servers join the second administrative group when restarted. Preferably, the performance and health of the servers in each administrative group are monitored over a separate out-of-band communication channel dedicated to interconnecting the servers as an administrative group. Each administrative group includes a local decision software program that communicates with a master decision software program that determines when and how to dynamically reallocate servers to different administrative work groups in response to usage demands, available resources and service level agreements for different customer accounts.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. An automatic method for operating a service provider for the Internet so as to provide dynamic management of hosted services comprising:
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for each of a plurality of customer accounts;
providing a plurality of servers allocated to a common administrative group for that customer account and configured to access software and data unique to that customer account to provide hosted services to the Internet for that customer account;
automatically monitoring each administrative group; and
automatically and dynamically reallocating at least one server from a first administrative group to a second administrative group in response to the automatic monitoring, including;
setting initialization pointers for said at least one server to access software and data unique to the customer account for the second administrative group; and
reinitializing said at least one server such that said at least one server joins the second administrative group. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A system for providing dynamic management of hosted services for the Internet provided to multiple customer accounts comprising:
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at least five servers operably connected to an intranet, each server having host management circuitry providing a communication channel with at least one of the other servers that is separate from the intranet;
at least four of the servers executing a local decision software program that monitors the server and communicates status information across the communication channel;
at least two of the servers allocated to a first administrative group for a first customer account and configured to access software and data unique to the first customer account to provide hosted services to the Internet for that customer account;
at least two of the servers allocated to a second administrative group for a second customer account and configured to access software and data unique to the second customer account to provide hosted services to the Internet for that customer account; and
at least one of the servers executing a master decision software program that collects status information from the other servers and dynamically reallocates at least one server from the first administrative group to the second administrative group in response to at least the status information. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
a resource database;
a service level agreement database;
a master decision logic module having access to the resource database and the service level agreement database and comparing the status information to information in the resource database and the service level agreement database to determine whether to dynamically at reallocate said at least one server from the first customer account to the second customer account; and
a dispatch module operably linked to the master decision logic module to dynamically reallocate said at least one server when directed by the master decision logic module by using the communication channel to set initialization pointers for said at least one server to access software and data unique to the customer account for the second administrative group and reinitializing said at least one server such that said at least one server joins the second administrative group.
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17. The system of claim 16 wherein the dispatch module further includes a set of connectivity rules and a set of personality modules for each customer account.
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18. The system of claim 11 wherein the local decision software program includes a plurality of measurement modules having outputs which are aggregated into a predictor routine to determine expected response times and probabilities for that server.
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19. The system of claim 18 wherein the local decision software program for a given server further comprises a fuzzy logic inference system connected at least to outputs of the predictor routine to initiate a request to add or remove servers from the administrative group associated with that server.
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20. The system of claim 19 wherein the master decision software program balances the request to add or remove servers from all of the local decision software programs with information in a resource database and a service level agreement database to determine whether to dynamically reallocate said at least one server from the first administrative group to the second administrative group.
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21. An automatic method for operating a service provider for the Internet so as to provide dynamic management of hosted services comprising:
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for each of a plurality of customer accounts;
providing a plurality of servers allocated to a common administrative group for that customer account and configured to access software and data unique to that customer account to provide hosted services to the Internet for that customer account;
establishing a pool of a plurality of virtual servers that may be selectively configured to access software and data for each of the plurality of customer accounts;
automatically monitoring each administrative group;
automatically allocating at least one virtual server to join the plurality of servers of a first administrative group in response to the automatic monitoring, including;
setting initialization pointers for said at least one virtual server to access software and data unique to the customer account for the second administrative group; and
reinitializing said at least one virtual server such that said at least one server joins the first administrative group. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification