On-demand supplemental diagnostic and service resource planning for mobile systems

• US 8,027,843 B2
• Filed: 11/01/2005
• Issued: 09/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Slingshot IOT LLC
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bodin, Willam Kress, Thorson, Derral C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Poinvil, Frantzy
• Application Number:
  US11/263,713
• Publication Number:
  US 20060052921A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,156 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705 10- 44
• US Class Current: 705/1.1
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 16/0232 for measuring vehicle parameters and indicating critical, abnormal or dangerous conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting

Abstract

Enhanced diagnostic service is provided by determining availability of and downloading a supplemental diagnostic function to isolate a failure according to a service signal from a mobile system; coalescing offers for a repair service according to results of the execution of the downloaded diagnostic function; presenting the offers to an operator of the mobile system; executing the diagnostic function by an on-demand computing system wherein transactions provided by the diagnostic function are automatically shared by simultaneously serving multiple customers; differentiating and recording each customer'"'"'s usage of the diagnostic functions according to one or more parameters included in the transactions, the parameters uniquely identifying each customer and a type of transaction conducted for that customer; and, responsive to a number of simultaneous transactions to any one server exceeding a performance limit of a given server, automatically accessing one or more additional servers to increase capacity and to share workload.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for conducting a transaction in an on-demand computing environment for providing an enhanced diagnostic service for mobile systems comprising:

determining if any downloadable supplemental diagnostic functions are available to isolate a failure according to a service signal from a mobile system;

downloading one or more available supplemental diagnostic functions to the mobile system for execution;

coalescing one or more offers for a repair service according to results of the execution of the downloaded diagnostic functions;

presenting the coalesced offers to an operator of the mobile system;

executing the diagnostic function by an on-demand computing system wherein transactions provided by the diagnostic function are automatically shared by simultaneously serving multiple customers;

differentiating and recording by a usage parameter recorder each customer'"'"'s usage of the diagnostic functions according to one or more parameters included in the transactions, the parameters uniquely identifying each customer and a type of transaction conducted for that customer; and

responsive to a number of simultaneous transactions to any one server exceeding a performance limit of a given server, automatically accessing by a capacity manager one or more additional servers to increase capacity and to share workload.

2. The method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising providing transaction processing capacity to at least one customer using a pay-as-you-go model in which charges are posted for actual computing resource consumption.

3. The method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising:

collecting by a billing server from a transaction server one or more service consumption measurements for a customer;

periodically summing the collected measurements for the customer;

multiplying the summed measurements by a unit cost factor to yield a total process application service cost for the customer; and

posting the total process application service cost to the customer for payment collection.

4. A system for conducting a transaction in an on-demand computing environment for providing an enhanced diagnostic service for mobile systems, comprising:

a computer-readable storage memory encoded with transaction-oriented process computer instructions disposable in a shared file system and configured to;

determine if any downloadable supplemental diagnostic functions are available to isolate a failure according to a service signal from a mobile system;

download one or more available supplemental diagnostic functions to the mobile system for execution;

coalesce one or more offers for a repair service according to results of the execution of the downloaded functions; and

present the coalesced offers to an operator of the mobile system;

an on-demand computing system configured to execute the process computer instructions wherein transactions provided by the supplemental diagnostic functions are automatically shared by simultaneously serving multiple customers;

a usage parameter recorder configured to differentiate and record each customer'"'"'s usage of the supplemental diagnostic functions according to one or more parameters included in the transactions, the parameters uniquely identifying each customer and a type of transaction conducted for that customer; and

a capacity manager configured to, responsive to a number of simultaneous transactions to any one server exceeding a performance limit of a given server, automatically access one or more additional servers to increase capacity and to share workload.

5. The system as set forth in claim 4 wherein the capacity manager and the usage parameter recorder are further configured to provide transaction processing capacity to at least one customer using a pay-as-you-go model in which charges are posted for actual computing resource consumption.

6. The system as set forth in claim 5 wherein the resource consumption is metered in at least one unit selected from a group consisting of processor units of time, processor operations, number of transactions completed, network bandwidth utilized, memory usage, storage usage, and number of communications packet transfers completed.

7. The system as set forth in claim 5 wherein the pay-as-you-go model further comprises automatically requesting payment by a service provider directly from a customer account at a banking or financial institution.

8. The system as set forth in claim 5 further comprising:

a billing server configured to collect from a transaction server one or more service consumption measurements for a customer; and

a charge calculator configured to periodically sum the collected measurements for the customer, to multiply the summed measurements by a unit cost factor to yield a total process application service cost for the customer, and to post the total process application service cost to the customer for payment collection.

9. The system as set forth in claim 4 wherein the capacity manager is further configured to increase transaction handling capacity and to share workload responsive to exceeding a measured aggregate capacity limit of a server selected from a group consisting of maximum network bandwidth, maximum memory usage, and maximum storage usage.

10. A method for deploying and using a virtual private network for controlling the flow of private reply messages responsive to a broadcast message in a messaging system, the method comprising:

responsive to determining remote access to broadcast-with-private-reply supplemental diagnostic program is required, transmitting the program to a client via the unsecure network using the secure tunneling;

responsive to determining that site access to the supplemental diagnostic program is required, transmitting the program to a client via an unsecure network using secure tunneling; and

executing the supplemental diagnostic by the client device to perform;

determining if any downloadable supplemental diagnostic functions are available to isolate a failure according to a service signal from a mobile system;

downloading one or more available supplemental diagnostic functions to the mobile system for execution;

coalescing one or more offers for a repair service according to results of the execution of the downloaded functions; and

presenting the coalesced offers to an operator of the mobile system.