Abstract: Disclosure herein relates to, inter alia, inventive cucurbituril compounds and novel methods of preparing thereof using a glycoluril compound having the formula (II), a glycoluril compound having the formula (II?), a glycoluril bis-ether of formula (III), a glycoluril dimer of formula (IV), a glycoluril tetramer compound of formula (V), and Sodium 4,4?-(1,4-phenylenebis(oxy))bis(butane-1-sulfonate, which result in significantly improved purity and yield of the intermediates and of the final products.

Abstract: Utilization data of reserved virtual machine (VM) instances can be obtained from a cloud service provider. A refund recommendation comprising a first quantity of VM instances and a refund credit associated with the first quantity of VM instances can be generated based on the utilization data. A purchase recommendation comprising a second quantity of VM instances and a purchase cost associated with the second quantity of VM instances can be generated. An exchange transaction to return the first quantity of VM instances and purchase the second quantity of VM instances can be generated, where a net total of the exchange transaction is determined based on the refund credit and the purchase cost.