Abstract: The invention comprises a computer-implemented process for managing computing resources provided to customers in an on-demand data center. The process comprises: providing a shared computing environment; providing to each customer one or more logical partitions of computing resources within the shared computing environment; allocating at least one processing engine to each logical partition; modeling a selected customer's resource utilization as a beta distribution; iteratively selecting a random resource utilization value from the beta distribution and, for each logical partition, calculating a processing engine differential; for each iteration, calculating a collective processing engine differential until the collective processing engine differential converges on an optimal processing engine differential; and adjusting the number of processing engines by the optimal processing engine differential to achieve an optimal free pool size.

Abstract: A display device in which a banner towed behind a moving vehicle such as a boat, is stabilized by a self-regulating drogue parachute attached to the trailing end of the banner so as to maintain the banner in a vertical plane with its longitudinal axis substantially horizontal, for a wide range of air speeds. When not in use, the banner is wound onto a roller rotatably and removably mounted on a support carried by the vehicle.