Abstract: A method of establishing business contracts with penalty credits for service level agreement violations, including determining business goals of a customer, determining business goals of a provider, determining benefits and losses of the customer as function of a service offered by the provider, determining benefits and losses of a provider as a function of the service offered to the customer, determining a type of service level agreement metric to be monitored and measured, determining an interval over which penalties are assessed, determining a particular target value of the service level agreement metric, determining a means of evaluating the service level agreement metric, and computing an optimal penalty credit structure achieving the business goals of the customer.

Abstract: A method and structure for computing a capacity-dependent price for an on-demand scenario includes a demand model module that stores a demand model for the on-demand scenario. A supply model module stores an evaluation of at least one of available and total supply for the on-demand scenario. A computing module relates the demand and supply for the on-demand scenario and computes a capacity-dependent price.

Abstract: One embodiment of the present method and apparatus for synthesizing a data stream includes retrieving meta data from at least one decision tree, the decision tree comprising a plurality of interconnected nodes, and generating the data stream in accordance with the meta data.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method for providing information to a client or customer about anticipated service center delays comprising maintaining data about the client's call preferences, modeling a best indicator of delays specific to an individual client when answering a call from the client by the service center in order to capture the greatest market share of the clients, and communicating to the client a best indicator of delays suited to the client's call preferences in answering the call from the client to the service center.

Abstract: A method and structure for reducing customer dissatisfaction for waiting includes a queue monitoring subsystem which detects an entry of a customer into a waiting queue. A reward computing subsystem calculates a reward for the customer for being in the waiting queue, and a communication subsystem communicates the reward to the customer. At least one of subsystems is automated.

Abstract: A system, method, and computer program product for benchmarking a stream processing system are disclosed. The method comprises generating a plurality of correlated test streams. A semantically related data set is embedded within each of the test streams in the plurality of correlated test streams. The plurality of correlated test streams is provided to at least one stream processing system. A summary is generated for each of the semantically related embedded data sets. A common identifier, which is transparent to the system being tested, is embedded within each stream in the plurality of correlated test streams. The common identifier is extracted from the output data set generated by the stream processing system. At least one of the stored copies of the summaries and the common identifier are compared to an output data set including a set of zero or more correlation results generated by the stream processing system.

Abstract: A system and method for workload generation include a processor for identifying a workload model by determining each of a hierarchy for workload generation, time scales for workload generation, and states and transitions at each of the time scales, and defining a parameter by determining each of fields for user specific attributes, application specific attributes, network specific attributes, content specific attributes, and a probability distribution function for each of the attributes; a user level template unit corresponding to a relatively slow time scale in signal communication with the processor; an application level template corresponding to a relatively faster time scale in signal communication with the processor; a stream level template corresponding to a relatively fastest time scale in signal communication with the processor; and a communications adapter in signal communication with the processor for defining a workload generating unit responsive to the template units.

Abstract: There are provided an apparatus, a method, and a computer program product for joint determination of price and capacity. The apparatus includes a price and capacity determination device for jointly determining a price and a capacity for a given item offered for sale by a given e-retailer, based at least upon market competition.

Abstract: The present invention broadly contemplates addressing QoS concerns in overlay design to account for the last mile problem. In accordance with the present invention, a simple queuing network model for bandwidth usage in the last-mile bottlenecks is used to capture the effects of the asymmetry, the contention for bandwidth on the outgoing link, and to provide characterization of network throughput and latency. Using this characterization computationally inexpensive heuristics are preferably used for organizing end-systems into a multicast overlay which meets specified latency and packet loss bounds, given a specific packet arrival process.

Abstract: Methods and arrangements for constructing a network overlay via embedding an interconnection network in a network overlay graph. Presented herein is one example of an approximation algorithm for efficient mapping of hypercube topology on a network overlay of N nodes such that the average network delay distance measured on the network overlay is minimized. The network delay distances between pairs of overlay nodes are measured on the shortest network paths. The mapping of the interconnection topology to the network overlay nodes preferably involves assigning 2m m-length binary indexes to the network overlay nodes. There is proposed herein a polynomial time algorithm for interconnection topology embedding using iterative cluster division and node binary index assignment. There is further proposed herein a method for construction of network overlays through interconnection network topology embedding, with the objective of optimizing a quality of service metric (e.g.

Abstract: Yield management techniques are provided. In one aspect of the invention, a technique for managing one or more computing resources comprises the following steps/operations. Data associated with at least one potential demand for use of the one or more computing resources is obtained. Then, a management model (e.g., a yield management model or a revenue management model) is generated in accordance with at least a portion of the obtained data, wherein the management model is operative to determine an allocation of the one or more computing resources based on combinations of price levels and service levels that may be offered to one or more users of the one or more computing resources so as to attempt to satisfy at least one management goal.