Abstract: An illustrative embodiment of a process for reconciling billing measures to cost factors, comprising receiving, by one or more processors, a set of billing measures from one or more applications and a set of cost factors from infrastructure feeds. Analyzing the set of billing measures and cost factors received, using a set of defined relationships to create analyzed information and generates, by the one or more processors, a set of reports using the analyzed information. Responsive to a determination to update the set of definitions, update the sets of definitions using information from the generated reports.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and system are described herein, in which system resources and operations are assigned to roles in a role-based access control system, and the roles are assigned to a plurality of users. An RBAC system is used to resolve the client request to perform an operation on a resource, the RBAC system using a hierarchy of the plurality of resources to determine if a user is permitted to perform the operation on a parent of the resource in the hierarchy of resources. The RBAC system also determines if a user is permitted to perform the operation on the resource if a user group to which the user belongs to has the required access.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for managing electrical power consumption in a mobile phone or other portable communications device having a battery and a display. A series of views forming a flow are retrieved from a memory or other digital storage device for presentation on the display. For each of the views in the flow, performance information relating to the portable communications device is determined while the view is displayed, and this information is stored in the digital storage medium. Upon subsequent retrieval of each view from the digital storage medium, configuring the operation of the portable communications device in response to the stored performance information to thereby manage the electrical power consumption of the portable communications device.

Abstract: According to an embodiment of the invention, a filer or other storage server is coupled to a network to store files for users of the network. Agents are coupled to the filer, and performs a scan or file walk for a Multi-Appliance Management Application (MMA) which is coupled to the filer and can monitor and manage the filer. A directory structure of the filer may be divided into two or more paths, each of which may be scanned by an independent agent. The results of the scan, or file walk, are saved to a database server. In this way, multiple agents may be used to scan a single storage server, and the amount of time required for the scan is reduced.

Abstract: Centralized role-based access control (RBAC) for storage servers can include operating multiple storage servers, each configured to provide a set of clients with access to stored data, and using a separate network server to provide centralized RBAC. The network server may include an API proxy to proxy requests to access individual APIs of a storage server by an application which is external to the network server and the storage server and may control access to the individual APIs of the storage servers on a per-API, per-user and per-object basis. The API proxy may filter responses to API calls based on the access privileges of the user of the application which sent the API call. In some embodiments, the network server may implement a Windows domain server, an LDAP server or the like to evaluate security credentials of administrative users on behalf of multiple storage servers.

Abstract: A system and method are provided to manage configuration of multiple file server appliances. The method comprises obtaining a source configuration from a storage server, and pushing a target configuration associated with the source configuration to one or more target storage servers.

Abstract: Certain tasks are outsourced from a filer to a remote policy engine. The policy engine implements various defined policies to control the filer's servicing of client requests. For example, the policy engine can be used to implement policies to control various storage-related operations relating to data managed by a filer, such as creation, deletion, modification, opening, closing, renaming and/or changing attributes of files or directories managed by the filer.

Abstract: According to an embodiment of the invention, a storage server management application (SSMA) includes scripting ability. The scripting ability allows functionality to be added to the SSMA by deploying scripting packages onto the SSMA. The packages may be written by a user having access to the SSMA, and deployed onto the SSMA without affecting the core functionality of the SSMA, and may be easily removed. One package allows a system administrator to monitor the configuration of storage servers monitored by the SSMA by comparing the current configuration of the filers to a standard configuration. Another package monitors best practices for redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) systems. Other packages may be added to the SSMA.

Abstract: In an RBAC system, a capability is defined as including an operation and an object on which the operation is to be performed. The capability is assigned to a role, which is in turn assigned to a user. Whether a user's request to perform an operation on an object should be authorized is determined based on whether a capability to perform the operation on the object is assigned to a role which is in turn assigned to the user. Further, the authorization is determined based on the evaluation of the constraint(s) attached to the role. If the evaluation result of the constraint(s) disallows the user to assume the role, the user is prohibited from performing the operation on the object even the user has such capability.

Abstract: In an RBAC system, a capability is defined as including an operation and an object on which the operation is to be performed. The capability is assigned to a role, which is in turn assigned to a user. Then the user will have the authorization to perform the operation on the object. Rather than specifying the object by predetermining the identity of the object, an expression (e.g., a regular expression, a query, etc.) may be specified in place of the predetermined object. In response to a request initiated by a user, the expression is then evaluated to determine the identity of the object(s) on which the operation may be performed.

Abstract: According to an embodiment of the invention, a directory on a storage server is scanned. A number of children of the directory is determined, and the number is added to a reference count. A child is scanned to collect information about the child, and the information is combined into a summary of the directory. After the child is scanned, the reference count is reduced by one. According to another embodiment of the invention, the storage server is scanned by an agent separate from the storage server.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for managing electrical power consumption in a mobile phone or other portable communications device having a battery and a display. A series of views forming a flow are retrieved from a memory or other digital storage device for presentation on the display. For each of the views in the flow, performance information relating to the portable communications device is determined while the view is displayed, and this information is stored in the digital storage medium. Upon subsequent retrieval of each view from the digital storage medium, configuring the operation of the portable communications device in response to the stored performance information to thereby manage the electrical power consumption of the portable communications device.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and system for providing role-based access control (RBAC) for storage management are described herein. Resource-identifying information is stored in a role-based access database for a network storage system, in association with role-identifying information for each of a plurality of roles and operation-identifying information. The operation-identifying information indicates one or more authorized operations for each of the plurality of roles and the resource-identifying information identifies specific resources maintained by the network storage system. The role-identifying information, data indicating one or more authorized operations for at least one of the roles, and resource-specific identifying information in the role-based access database are used to determine whether to allow or deny a request from a network storage client to access a resource maintained by the network storage system.

Abstract: According to an embodiment of the invention, a filer or other storage server is coupled to a network to store files for users of the network. Agents are coupled to the filer, and performs a scan or file walk for a Multi-Appliance Management Application (MMA) which is coupled to the filer and can monitor and manage the filer. A directory structure of the filer may be divided into two or more paths, each of which may be scanned by an independent agent. The results of the scan, or file walk, are saved to a database server. In this way, multiple agents may be used to scan a single storage server, and the amount of time required for the scan is reduced.

Abstract: Certain tasks are outsourced from a filer to a remote policy engine. The policy engine implements various defined policies to control the filer's servicing of client requests. For example, the policy engine can be used to implement policies to control various storage-related operations relating to data managed by a filer, such as creation, deletion, modification, opening, closing, renaming and/or changing attributes of files or directories managed by the filer.

Abstract: A blade assembly for a lawn edging machine. The blade assembly includes a hub, at least two spaced-apart blade members having two or more blade arms extending radially therefrom, and a horizontal blade member connecting the two blade members at their radially extended arm ends.

Abstract: Segmentation of characters in a character set (10), made by placing a dark mark against a light background (12), is accomplished by establishing a vertical pixel projection for each pixel column in the image. The vertical pixel projections are filtered with a decay parameter so those pixel columns which contain only background have the highest projection. Thereafter, a set of "cut-points" (points of image segmentation) is obtained so that each cut-point coincides with a pixel column whose vertical pixel projection is both a local maxima and exceeds a predetermined threshold. The number of such cut-points is counted and if the number is not significantly greater than a predetermined number, the image is segmented along the cut-points. Otherwise, the vertical projections of those pixel columns coincident with the cut-points are filtered with a decreasing threshold to reduce the number of potential cut-points.

Abstract: A flexible technique that is robust in the presence of noise and distortion is disclosed for locating and utilizing fiducial markings to locate predetermined areas within an image. Initially, a set of candidate markings is determined, one marking from within each of a plurality of predesignated areas of a scanned image. Thereafter, an estimate of a set of image distortion factors relative to an ideally registered image of the same type as the scanned image is derived. Predicted locations for the fiducial markings are derived using this estimated set of image distortion factors. If the difference in location between the actual location of any candidate markings and its predicted location is greater than a predetermined threshold, at least one such candidate is removed from the set of candidate markings.

Abstract: The invention provides for a skimmer (10) interconnected to the floating roof (30) of a floating roof tank (300) wherein a mixture of at least two immiscible liquids, including a lowest specific gravity liquid (50) and at least one higher specific gravity liquid (40), are stored. The skimmer (10) of the present invention is placed on the underside (20) of the floating roof (30). A funnel (140) is attached to the underside (20) of the roof (30) to extend downwardly into the liquid mixture wherein the funnel (140) has formed perforations (500) near the attachment of the funnel (140) to the underside (20) of the roof (30). A float (110) is operatively connected to the funnel (140) and selectively closes over the perforations (500) when the float (110) is in the higher specific gravity liquids (40) and opens over the perforations when the float (110) is disposed in the lowest specific gravity liquid (50 ).

Abstract: A pivotal valve (10) for use in removal of catalysts (40) from reactors (30) having outer and inner flange plates (110, 120) with a plurality of spacers (130, 132, 134) firmly attached therebetween to form open regions (300, 302) between the spacers and the flange plates to allow free passage of the catalyst material (40) upon closure of the valve (10) to prevent jamming of the valve (10), a gate (140) pivotally attached between the plates (110, 120) for selectively opening and closing the nozzle hole (25) on the reactor nozzle (20) and an arcuate steel plate (190) on the pivotal gate (140) for selectively engaging the inner flange plate (120) next to the nozzle (20) to provide a complete circular seal around the nozzle hole (25) when the circular gate (140) is in the closed position.