Allocating financial risk and reward in a multi-tenant environment

• US 8,719,131 B1
• Filed: 03/29/2012
• Issued: 05/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Roth, Gregory B., Brandwine, Eric Jason
• Primary Examiner(s): Shrestha, Bijendra K
• Application Number:
  US13/434,283
• Time in Patent Office: 768 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

Multi-tenant resources can be funded using payment submitted with requests for those resources, such that the resources do not need to be associated with a specific user account. A resource can be allocated and available as long as payment has been provided. If a user wants the resource to be available for additional processing, for example, the user can submit another request with additional funding. The funding can come in the form of donations from any user, or in the form of investments where the investor expects some return on the investment in the form of revenue, visibility, or other such compensation. One or more management components can track funding for various resources, can accept and select bids for period of sponsorship, and can manage various donation models.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

at least one device processor; and

memory including instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to;

receive a request to obtain an amount of capacity in a multi-tenant resource environment, the amount of capacity capable of being accessed by a plurality of users;

receive requests from a plurality of investors, the requests containing payment to support access to the amount of capacity;

track funds supplied by each of the plurality of investors during at least an initial startup phase where revenue does not meet a specified criterion, the funds being based at least in part on the payment received from the plurality of investors;

monitor a level of funding of the amount of capacity;

based at least in part upon an amount of funds supplied by each of the plurality of investors, apportion an amount of future consideration among the plurality of investors; and

initiate at least one of sending requests to at least a portion of the plurality of investors when the level of funding falls below a minimum threshold, the requests prompting the at least a portion of the plurality of investors to provide additional funds, or throttling access to a set of resources corresponding to the amount of capacity provided by the multi-tenant resource environment.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the amount of future consideration includes a percentage of ownership, a percentage of revenue over a period of time, or a fixed amount of return.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein users are also able to invest in the amount of capacity by submitting electronic payment with requests to the amount of capacity.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein a type of future consideration provided to the users depends at least in part upon an amount of the electronic payment.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions when executed further cause the system to:

enable an application executing on the system to adjust at least one aspect of a set of resources provided the multi-tenant resource environment, including at least one of reducing a capacity or throughput of the set of resources, or increasing an amount of advertising displayed through usage of the set of resources.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of application programming interfaces (APIs) configured to receive requests from investors, the APIs being programmable to enable selection of specific selection criteria.

7. A computer implemented method, comprising:

receiving requests from a plurality of investors, the requests containing an amount of funds used to support access to an amount of capacity in a multi-tenant resource environment, the amount of capacity capable of being accessed by a plurality of users;

tracking, by a computer system that includes a processor coupled to a memory, the amount of funds supplied by each of the plurality of investors during at least an initial startup phase where revenue does not meet a specified criterion;

monitor, by the computer system, a level of funding of the amount of capacity;

providing information regarding how each of the plurality of investors will be apportioned an amount of future consideration in return for the amount of funds;

based at least in part upon the amount of funds supplied by each of the plurality of investors, apportioning the amount of future consideration among the plurality of investors; and

initiate at least one of sending, by the computer system, requests to at least a portion of the plurality of investors when the level of funding falls below a minimum threshold, the requests prompting the at least a portion of the plurality of investors to provide additional funds, or throttling access to a set of resources corresponding to the amount of capacity provided by the multi-tenant resource environment.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 7, wherein the amount of future consideration includes a percentage of ownership, a percentage of revenue over a period of time, or a fixed amount of return.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 7, wherein users are able to invest in the amount of capacity by submitting electronic payment with requests to the amount of capacity.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 7, wherein users are able to invest in the amount of capacity by submitting electronic payment with requests to the amount of capacity.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein a type of future consideration provided to the users depends at least in part upon an amount of the electronic payment.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 7, further comprising:

throttling access to a set of resources provided by the multi-tenant resource environment when a level of usage exceeds the level of funding.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 7, further comprising:

enabling an application executing in the multi-tenant resource environment to adjust at least one aspect of a set of resources provided by the multi-tenant resource environment, including at least one of reducing a capacity or throughput of the set of resources, or increasing an amount of advertising displayed through usage of the set of resources.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving requests from investors at a plurality of application programming interfaces (APIs) the APIs being programmable to enable selection of specific selection criteria.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more sequences of instructions executable by one or more processors to perform a set of operations comprising:

receiving a request from an investor of a plurality of investors to a monetization layer of a multi-tenant resource environment to obtain an amount of capacity, the amount of capacity capable of being accessed by a plurality of users, the request including bid information for the amount of capacity, a period of time, revenue and an amount of investment;

comparing the bid information for the investor to other bid information submitted by the plurality of investors;

selecting the bid information as a winning bid when the bid information meets at least one selection criterion;

in response to selecting the bid information as the winning bid, applying the amount of investment to operation of the amount of capacity during the period of time and providing the user with an amount of consideration for the amount of investment over the period of time;

monitoring a level of funding of the amount of capacity; and

initiate at least one of sending requests to at least a portion of the plurality of investors when the level of funding falls below a minimum threshold, the requests prompting the at least a portion of the plurality of investors to provide additional funds, or throttling access to a set of resources corresponding to the amount of capacity provided by the multi-tenant resource environment.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions executed by the one or more processors to perform the operations of:

throttling access to a set of resources provided by the multi-tenant resource environment when a level of usage exceeds the level of funding.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 15 further comprising instructions executed by the one or more processors to perform the operations of:

enabling an application executing on the multi-tenant resource environment to adjust at least one aspect of a set of resources provided by the multi-tenant resource environment when a level of usage exceeds the level of funding, including at least one of reducing a capacity or throughput of the set of resources, or increasing an amount of advertising displayed through usage of the set of resources.