Patents by Inventor Nicholas Alexander Allen

Nicholas Alexander Allen has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • DATA STORAGE OPTIMIZATION FOR NON-VOLATILE MEMORY
    Publication number: 20170357573
    Abstract: Non-volatile devices may be configured such that a clear operation on a single bit clears an entire block of bits. The representation of particular data structures may be optimized to reduce the number of clear operations required to store the representation in non-volatile memory. A data schema may indicate that a data structure of an application may be optimized for storage in non-volatile memory. A translation layer may convert an application level representation of a data value associated with the data structure to an optimized storage representation of the data value before storing the optimized storage representation of the data value in non-volatile memory.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 29, 2017
    Publication date: December 14, 2017
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • ENHANCED AUTHENTICATION FOR SECURE COMMUNICATIONS
    Publication number: 20170331822
    Abstract: A server obtains a challenge from another computer system during a negotiation with a client according to a protocol. The server injects the challenge into a message of the protocol to the client. The client uses the challenge in an authentication request. The server submits the authentication request to the other computer system for verification. The other computer system verifies the authentication request using a key registered to the client. The server operates further dependent at least in part on whether verification of the authentication request was successful.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 26, 2017
    Publication date: November 16, 2017
    Inventors: Andrew Paul Mikulski, Nicholas Alexander Allen, Gregory Branchek Roth
  • Converting a non-workflow program to a workflow program using workflow inferencing
    Patent number: 9818078
    Abstract: Event records, such as log files, generated by a non-workflow program may be collected and provided to an event processor. The event processor may cluster the event records into distinct event clusters. A network inferencer may then generate one or more candidate workflow networks based on the event clusters generated by the event processor. Scores may be generated for evaluating the candidate workflow networks based upon the ability of the candidate workflow networks to explain the event records and/or the ability of the event records to attest to the candidate workflow networks. A workflow inferencer may then map a candidate workflow network to a workflow description.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Data storage optimization for non-volatile memory
    Patent number: 9811459
    Abstract: Non-volatile devices may be configured such that a clear operation on a single bit clears an entire block of bits. The representation of particular data structures may be optimized to reduce the number of clear operations required to store the representation in non-volatile memory. A data schema may indicate that a data structure of an application may be optimized for storage in non-volatile memory. A translation layer may convert an application level representation of a data value associated with the data structure to an optimized storage representation of the data value before storing the optimized storage representation of the data value in non-volatile memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Response rate limiting device
    Patent number: 9813306
    Abstract: A response rate limiting device is provided in order to reduce a volume of data which may correspond to amplification attack. The rate liming device may receive a set of packets and determine identification information corresponding to the packets. The rate limiting device may then update a score associated with the determined identification information, the score may be maintained in a buffer. If the score information is above a threshold, the rate limiting device determine to delay a response associated with the identification information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Determinism for distributed applications
    Patent number: 9804945
    Abstract: Systems and methods are described for analyzing and verifying distributed application programs. In one embodiment, an application program is divided into as one or more independently executable components. During execution of the independently executable components, non-deterministic events are modified in order to effectuate deterministic results. The non-deterministic events may be modified in accordance with a predetermined set of constraints.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 3, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Log monitoring system
    Patent number: 9800455
    Abstract: Disclosed are various embodiments for a log monitoring system to monitor the health of server log files. The log monitoring system may comprise at least one computing device and at least one application executable in the at least one computing device, where the at least one application being configured to generate at least one log health signal based on an analysis of the server log content generated by at least one host application. Furthermore, the application may generate a system integrity record based the at least one log health signal and an external signal, wherein the external signal embodies a system health metric of the at least one host application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Raleigh H. Upshur, Nicholas Alexander Allen, Patrick J. Ward
  • Request routing and processing using a cancellation token
    Patent number: 9781053
    Abstract: Remote computing resource service providers allow customers to reduce overhead by using computer hardware resources of the service provider to execute a variety of operations. Computer hardware resources of the service provider may be widely distributed between various geographic locations and may have differing computing capacity. Therefore it may be advantageous to coordinate processing of customer operations between computer hardware resource locations of the service provider. Customer requests to perform operations may be distributed to various locations and coordinated by the service provider using various techniques such as a cancellation manager to terminate unprocessed requests distributed to the various locations once one or more of the distributed requests have been processed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 5, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Programatic implementations generated from an API call log
    Patent number: 9778968
    Abstract: Systems and methods for generating a programmatic implementation based on a set of recorded API calls. One example includes determining an interval of time during which actions made on an interface associated with a session user account are made, obtaining a set of records from an API call log that indicates a set of API calls made during the interval of time, and generating a programmatic implementation that is usable to submit the set of API calls.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • UPDATING VIRTUAL MACHINE IMAGES
    Publication number: 20170272337
    Abstract: Remote computing resource service providers allow customers to execute virtual computer systems in a virtual environment on hardware provided by the computing resource service provider. The virtual computer systems may be suspended for an indeterminate amount of time and saved as images in one or more storage systems of the service provider. Periodically, updates for the virtual computer systems are required. In order to update virtual computer systems that are stored in a suspended state, an offline patch and indirection map is generated and used to update the virtual computer systems.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 28, 2017
    Publication date: September 21, 2017
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Scanning kernel data structure characteristics
    Patent number: 9767276
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for detecting kernel data structure tampering are disclosed. In the method and apparatus, a memory region of a computer system is scanned for one or more characteristics of a kernel data structure of an operating system kernel. It is then determined, based at least in part on identifying whether the one or more characteristics are found in the memory region, whether the kernel data structure is stored in the memory region of the computer system for tampering with the kernel data structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Fast-booting application image using variation points in application source code
    Patent number: 9766921
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for configuring an overlay network are provided. In the method and apparatus, an application source comprising an executable portion is obtained. A computer system instance is caused to execute at least some of the executable portion, and a snapshot of the computer system instance after partial but incomplete execution of the executable portion is obtained such that the snapshot is usable to instantiate another computer system instance to continue execution of the executable portion from a point in execution at which the snapshot was obtained.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 11, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • DIRECTED PLACEMENT FOR REQUEST INSTANCES
    Publication number: 20170262303
    Abstract: Techniques for placing virtual machines at hardware locations are described herein. A first assignment of virtual machines to hardware locations that fails to satisfy a set of placement criteria is detected, a second assignment of virtual machines to hardware locations that assigns a subset of the set of virtual machines to new hardware locations is generated, and it is determined if the second assignment of virtual machines to hardware locations satisfies a subset of the set of placement criteria.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 31, 2017
    Publication date: September 14, 2017
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Artificial memory pressure for low memory machine
    Patent number: 9747028
    Abstract: Techniques for addressing performance degradation when a computer system is in a memory constrained state while running one or more applications are described herein. While executing, a computer system may monitor system memory and record one or more tracked sample types and may use the collection of tracked sample types to aggregate memory size equivalents to the tracked sample types and calculate a simulated memory pressure. The simulated memory pressure may be applied to the system by allocating memory from a memory manager, thereby reducing memory pressure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 29, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Role-based access control assignment
    Patent number: 9734309
    Abstract: Techniques for assigning roles to users within a computing system are described herein. A matrix representation of a probabilistic assignment of roles to users is created based at least in part on existing permissions. The matrix representation is then iteratively perturbed and the resulting perturbation is evaluated using an objective function, with perturbation decisions based at least in part on making the objective function converge to a threshold value. When the solution converges, the resulting assignment matrix may be used to assign roles to users.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 15, 2017
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Intrusion detection using bus snooping
    Patent number: 9727726
    Abstract: Remote computing resource service providers allow customers to execute one or more applications in a virtual environment on computer systems provided by the computing resource service provider. The customer applications are generally executed by multiple virtual machine instances working together. The virtual machines may be managed by a hypervisor executing on computer systems operated by the service provider. These computer systems may be vulnerable to intrusions and other malicious attack, thereby exposing the virtual machines and corresponding customer applications executing on the computer systems. A monitoring device may be used in one or more of the computing systems, operated by the service provider, in order to monitor and prevent a variety of different attacks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 8, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • PROPAGATING STATE INFORMATION TO NETWORK NODES
    Publication number: 20170201410
    Abstract: A computer system propagates state information updates between nodes. A node establishes connections with one or more nodes of a plurality of nodes based at least in part on the number of connections between the one or more nodes and the nodes of the plurality of nodes. The node then propagates state information of the node to one or more other nodes of the plurality of nodes.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 27, 2017
    Publication date: July 13, 2017
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • Application definition deployment with request filters employing base groups
    Patent number: 9705755
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for application definition deployment using base groups are provided. In the method and apparatus, service requests are received at a request queue and queued by the request queue. The request queue also receives an availability message from a fleet device indicating application definitions available to the fleet device using base groups. The request queue provides a service request to the fleet device, whereby the service request is identified based on the base groups indicated by the fleet device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 11, 2017
    Assignee: AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • OVERLAY NETWORKS FOR APPLICATION GROUPS
    Publication number: 20170195444
    Abstract: A communication to a network location is detected at a computing device. The communication is transmitted to the network location in a manner dependent at least in part on whether the network location is at the computing device or at a different computing device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 20, 2017
    Publication date: July 6, 2017
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen
  • OVERLAY NETWORKS FOR APPLICATION GROUPS
    Publication number: 20170195443
    Abstract: A communication to a network location is detected at a computing device. The communication to the network location is encrypted dependent at least in part on whether the network location is at a different computing device from the computing device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 20, 2017
    Publication date: July 6, 2017
    Inventor: Nicholas Alexander Allen