Abstract: A method for managing a business. At least one relationship is determined between N business components (B1, B2, . . . , BN) and respective N costs (C1, C2, . . . , CN) and respective N values (V1, V2, . . . , VN) pertaining to the N business components. The N business components are a subset of M business components (B1, B2, . . . , BM) of a Component Based Model (CBM) of the M business components subject to M?2 and N?M. Determining the at least one relationship includes relating business components of the CBM with an Information Technology (IT) model of an IT system. The IT model includes abstract IT structures, virtual IT structures, real IT structures, or combinations thereof.

Abstract: The techniques provided herein include obtaining a model of an enterprise operation that specifies initiation and one or more evolution milestones of one or more business entities, formulating one or more performance metrics for the enterprise operation, wherein the one or more performance metrics are calculated from the one or more business entities, the one or more evolution milestones, and one or more relevant external events, and using the one or more business entities and one or more performance metrics to automatically create an executable performance monitoring model for the enterprise operation, wherein the executable performance monitoring model processes data in the one or more business entities, the one or more evolution milestones, and the one or more relevant external events to compute the one or more performance metrics for the enterprise operation.

Abstract: A smart card is disclosed which includes a mass storage memory for storing biometric information of a user and private data. A radio is used as an interface to the card. When the user of the card wishes to invoke an application for the private data, biometric information about the user is provided to a device in communication with the card, enabling the card to authenticate the user as an authorized user of the private data, and in response to that authentication provide the data to the application in a manner that maintains privacy and integrity of data.

Abstract: A smart card is disclosed which includes a mass storage memory for storing biometric information of a user and private data. A radio is used as an interface to the card. When the user of the card wishes to invoke an application for the private data, biometric information about the user is provided to a device in communication with the card, enabling the card to authenticate the user as an authorized user of the private data, and in response to that authentication provide the data to the application in a manner that maintains privacy and integrity of data.

Abstract: A method and system are described for using business artifacts to identify elements of a component business model. Artifacts operated upon by the business are first identified, and then used to analyze the business into business operations. This is done by identifying every business activity that acts on an artifact, creating directed graphs for the business activities, and decomposing the directed graphs into sub-graphs, each sub-graph representing a business operation and being annotated by a verb expression, the annotated sub-graph representing a business service. The business services are then clustered into non-overlapping components, using common affinities reflected in the verb expressions, and organized by partitioning into internal and external operations, exposing a business service for each external operation. The components are then clustered into non-overlapping business competencies, and arranged by accountability level.

Abstract: Execution of flexible workflows using artifacts is described. A workflow execution engine is configured to instantiate a process execution (PE) artifact. The PE artifact includes one or more transitions. The workflow execution engine is further configured to execute the one or more transitions and determine if any of the one or more transitions are new or modified. The workflow execution engine is additionally configured to load and execute new or modified transitions, without reinstantiating the PE artifact, responsive to determining that at least one new or modified transitions exist.

Abstract: A method for generating implementation artifacts for contextually-aware business applications includes utilizing a platform independent model (PIM) of a business application; generating a platform specific model (PSM) from the PIM, wherein the generating of a PSM includes one or more transformations between one or more meta-models of the PIM and one or more meta-models of the generated PSM; generating implementation artifacts; and binding the generated implementation artifacts with any existing services of the business application.

Abstract: A smart card is disclosed which includes a mass storage memory for storing biometric information of a user and private data. A radio is used as an interface to the card. When the user of the card wishes to invoke an application for the private data, biometric information about the user is provided to a device in communication with the card, enabling the card to authenticate the user as an authorized user of the private data, and in response to that authentication provide the data to the application in a manner that maintains privacy and integrity of data.

Abstract: A system for managing resources and business processes includes a plurality of resource objects stored in a resource object database. Each resource object represents a corresponding resource for use by a business process. Each of the plurality of resource objects includes data pertaining to a state of availability of the corresponding resource.

Abstract: A method and system are described for using business artifacts to identify elements of a component business model. Artifacts operated upon by the business are first identified, and then used to analyze the business into business operations. This is done by identifying every business activity that acts on an artifact, creating directed graphs for the business activities, and decomposing the directed graphs into sub-graphs, each sub-graph representing a business operation and being annotated by a verb expression, the annotated sub-graph representing a business service. The business services are then clustered into non-overlapping components, using common affinities reflected in the verb expressions, and organized by partitioning into internal and external operations, exposing a business service for each external operation. The components are then clustered into non-overlapping business competencies, and arranged by accountability level.

Abstract: Execution of flexible workflows using artifacts is described. A workflow execution engine is configured to instantiate a process execution (PE) artifact. The PE artifact includes one or more transitions. The workflow execution engine is further configured to execute the one or more transitions and determine if any of the one or more transitions are new or modified. The workflow execution engine is additionally configured to load and execute new or modified transitions, without reinstantiating the PE artifact, responsive to determining that at least one new or modified transitions exist.

Abstract: The techniques provided herein include obtaining a model of an enterprise operation that specifies initiation and one or more evolution milestones of one or more business entities, formulating one or more performance metrics for the enterprise operation, wherein the one or more performance metrics are calculated from the one or more business entities, the one or more evolution milestones, and one or more relevant external events, and using the one or more business entities and one or more performance metrics to automatically create an executable performance monitoring model for the enterprise operation, wherein the executable performance monitoring model processes data in the one or more business entities, the one or more evolution milestones, and the one or more relevant external events to compute the one or more performance metrics for the enterprise operation.

Abstract: A data storage device uses a foil disk platter with significantly reduced inertia and weight as compared to the thick aluminum or glass disk platter in a typical hard disk drive. The reduced rotating inertia of the foil disk enables faster spin-up performance which can be used to reduce decrease the power consumed by the unit. In portable appliances that use disk drive storage devices battery life can be extended significantly and the unit can be made thinner and lighter. Certain parameters of the foil disk substrate may be determined, to provide improved control of disk flutter, from a range parameter defined by RANGE = ? ? ? R 2 Et 2 where ?=foil disk substrate mass density, R=foil disk substrate radius, E=Young's modulus of foil disk substrate, and t=foil disk substrate thickness. RANGE has dimensional units of s2/in2, and the magnitude of RANGE may be between 10?6 and 3(10?4).

Abstract: An Enterprise Management Portfolio Hub allows a user to perform enterprise portfolio management activities from a single point of control. EPMH relates information, analysis, display and control based on the organizing concept of the business components that comprise the CBM map of the enterprise by collecting portfolio information from existing portfolio management tools and generating a portfolio model. It allows the user to interact with or access information from various Portfolio Management applications and services through the portfolio model. EPMH supports evaluative techniques that can be used to identify areas for business transformation and to generate transition plans.

Abstract: A data storage device uses a foil disk platter with significantly reduced inertia and weight as compared to the thick aluminum or glass disk platter in a typical hard disk drive. The reduced rotating inertia of the foil disk enables faster spin-up performance which can be used to reduce decrease the power consumed by the unit. In portable appliances that use disk drive storage devices battery life can be extended significantly and the unit can be made thinner and lighter. Certain parameters of the foil disk substrate may be determined, to provide improved control of disk flutter, from a range parameter defined by RANGE = ? ? ? R 2 Et 2 where ?=foil disk substrate mass density, R=foil disk substrate radius, E=Young's modulus of foil disk substrate, and t=foil disk substrate thickness. RANGE has dimensional units of s2/in2, and the magnitude of RANGE may be between 10?6 and 3(10?4).

Abstract: A method for generating implementation artifacts for contextually-aware business applications includes utilizing a platform independent model (PIM) of a business application; generating a platform specific model (PSM) from the PIM, wherein the generating of a PSM includes one or more transformations between one or more meta-models of the PIM and one or more meta-models of the generated PSM; generating implementation artifacts; and binding the generated implementation artifacts with any existing services of the business application.

Abstract: A method and system are described for using business artifacts to identify elements of a component business model. Artifacts operated upon by the business are first identified, and then used to analyze the business into business operations. This is done by identifying every business activity that acts on an artifact, creating directed graphs for the business activities, and decomposing the directed graphs into sub-graphs, each sub-graph representing a business operation and being annotated by a verb expression, the annotated sub-graph representing a business service. The business services are then clustered into non-overlapping components, using common affinities reflected in the verb expressions, and organized by partitioning into internal and external operations, exposing a business service for each external operation. The components are then clustered into non-overlapping business competencies, and arranged by accountability level.

Abstract: Generating a transition plan for a computer resource portfolio, representing each resource as a state machine, by generating a transition plan, the transition plan having a set of acts for transitioning states of the resources, to move the computer resource portfolio from a present state, the present state based on an inventory of present computer capabilities, to a future state. The future state is identified based on a difference between a present state and an identified state meeting given performance requirements. The transition plan is optimized to maximize the sum value of the computer resource portfolio values added over the state sequence of the transition.

Abstract: A method of modeling a service-oriented business including identifying a business service to provide, creating its business specification which specifies business requirements for the provided service, the business specification of a service, and service management terms, storing the business specification for the provided service in a service catalog, creating and reviewing its business process model, the business process model providing a sequence of business tasks in the business process, analyzing each of the business tasks to determine which of the business tasks should be accomplished via required service, process modeling each of the business tasks that are not service tasks, storing a process model for each of the business tasks that are not service tasks in a operation model repository, creating a business specification for each required service and storing the business specification for each of the required services in a repository of business specifications of required services.

Abstract: Automomic business processes management solutions have capabilities to adapt themselves to changes in the business environment. These autonomic business solutions are built by wiring together autonomic solution components called BPbots (Business Process robots). BPbots are granular solution components representing an aspect of a business process. In general, BPbots consist of two parts, an execution module and a managerial module. The execution module represents the standard, non-autonomic solution component, such as a standard process flow model describing the long-running flow or business adapter describing the communication of the solution with service providers (such as applications). The managerial module is responsible for the autonomic behavior of the BPbot. The managerial component has the ability to monitor the execution module, analyze the performance, plan new, more appropriate execution patterns and change the behavior of the execution module according to the new plan.