Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer implemented instructions for generating a customized catalog for an entity or organization. Items from a base catalog are presented to a user located at a remote data processing system. One or more items are selected by a user through a process of “meta-shopping”. The selected items are placed in a set, also referred to as a “meta-shopping cart”, used to generate the customized catalog. Terms for purchasing items in the customized catalog are associated with the customized catalog. Further, a protocol for purchasing items from the customized catalog may be established, and the customized catalog is then placed on a Web site.

Abstract: A clustered computer system includes a shared data storage system, preferably a virtual shared disk (VSD) memory system, to which the computers in the cluster write data and from which the computers read data, using data access requests. The data access requests can be associated with deadlines, and individual storage devices in the shared storage system satisfy competing requests based on the deadlines of the requests. The deadlines can be updated and requests can be killed, to facilitate real time data access for, e.g., multimedia applications such as video on demand.

Abstract: A clustered computer system includes a shared data storage system, preferably a virtual shared disk (VSD) memory system, to which the computers in the cluster write data and from which the computers read data, using data access requests. The data access requests can be associated with deadlines, and individual storage devices in the shared storage system satisfy competing requests based on the deadlines of the requests. The deadlines can be updated and requests can be killed, to facilitate real time data access for, e.g., multimedia applications such as video on demand.

Abstract: A method and system for controlling and guaranteeing a service level agreement (SLA) based on a communications outbound link bandwidth usage to a plurality of customers having electronic business activity hosted by at least one server as a server farm, includes monitoring the outbound communications bandwidth usage by each customer traffic to determine a level of service being provided to each customer with respect to the agreed service level agreement in each service cycle time per unit of time. The flow of incoming requests to each customer business activity application is controlled so as to guarantee a level of service previously agreed to the customer by queuing requests to the customer and by selectively dropping requests to the customer to guarantee the agreed service levels to the customer. The controlling process controls and guarantees each outbound link usage based service level agreement by controlling the flow of incoming requests to the at least one server.

Abstract: In a client-server environment having a server group including one or more participating servers and one or more controller servers, where each participating server can communicate with at least one controller server, a method for coordinating actions among the servers in the server group comprising the steps of: (1) communicating between a client and at least one of the servers in the server group using a protocol that has limited or no defined procedures for passing state information between the client and the servers; (2) transmitting a request for an action from the client to one of the servers; and (3) communicating among a plurality of servers with at least one controller server coordinating actions of at least some of the servers in response to the request.

Abstract: A system and method for dynamically determining whether a client computer or a web site server computer is to process web site database data to render a data structure, such as a web page, in response to a request from the client computer. The request from the client computer implicitly or explicitly indicates the processing capability of the client computer, and if the client's processing capability is sufficient to render the web site data into a web page in fulfillment of the request, and the web server usage is high and server policy permits it, the unprocessed data and necessary classes of processing code are downloaded to the client computer, which then processes the data to render the requested web page. Otherwise, the server computer processes the data and returns the web page to the client computer.

Abstract: Apparatus and methods for identifying traffic patterns to web sites based on templates that characterize the arrival of traffic to the web sites are provided. Based on these templates, determinations are made as to which web sites should be co-located so as to optimize resource allocation. Specifically, web sites whose templates are complimentary, i.e. a first web site having a peak in arrival traffic at time t1 and a second web site that has a trough in arrival traffic at time t1, are designated as being candidates for co-location. In addition, the present invention uses the templates identified for the traffic patterns of web sites to determine thresholds for offloading traffic to other servers. These thresholds include a first threshold at which offloading should be performed, a second threshold that takes into consideration the lead time needed to begin offloading, and a third threshold that takes into consideration a lag time needed to stop all offloading of traffic to the other servers.

Abstract: A method, system, computer program product, and data structure for processing requests for services in a networked data processing system is provided. In one embodiment a request is received by a service provider. The request includes defined allowable actions and request definition compositions. The request also includes a plurality of actions wherein the relationships between the plurality of actions are defined. The service provider processes the plurality of actions according to the defined relationships and generates a response.

Abstract: A system and method for hierarchically caching objects includes one or more level 1 nodes, each including at least one level 1 cache; one or more level 2 nodes within which the objects are permanently stored or generated upon request, each level 2 node coupled to at least one of the one or more level 1 nodes and including one or more level 2 caches; and means for storing, in a coordinated manner, one or more objects in at least one level 1 cache and/or at least one level 2 cache, based on a set of one or more criteria.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method, apparatus, and computer implemented instructions for processing Web and other Internet or Intranet based services. The system for processing Web requests includes a Web server with a connection to the Internet or Intranet with a predefined network bandwidth, a set of primary Web and application server cluster nodes to process the requests, and a dispatcher to allocate requests to nodes; in addition, one or more offload server nodes are connected to the network. Client Web requests arrive at the dispatcher of the Web server, which determines whether the incoming request can be handled at the primary Web server cluster, whether all or part of the user Web request should be offloaded to one of the offload server nodes, or whether the request should be throttled.

Abstract: A disconnected transaction system for pervasive computing devices includes a service provider server; a pervasive computing device; a communication network; and a service contract downloadable from the service provider server to the pervasive computing device over the communication network during a connected mode, the service contract specifying rules of interaction with a service application associated with the service contract and providing a service provider with a mechanism for validating, upon reconnection to the service provider server, at least one transaction of the service application performed by a user of the pervasive computing device during a disconnected mode.

Abstract: Requests for objects are received from one or more clients in a system comprised of a plurality of nodes. One of the requests is sent from one of the clients. The request is received from a first node of said plurality of nodes by a second node of said plurality of nodes. A requested object is returned from the second node of the plurality of nodes using one of a plurality of protocols. The method may be applied to a scalable and highly available cache array. The cache array may enhance the performance and throughput of Web servers connected to a network such as the Internet. A network dispatcher may send requests to a cache node of a cache array. The cache node selected by the network dispatcher may either serve the request, handoff the request to another cache node of a cache array, or communicate via one of a variety of protocols with another cache node of the cache array to cooperatively serve the request. A network dispatcher, operating in a special mode, may also function as a content based router.

Abstract: A method for automating contract negotiation between a plurality of parties over a communications network. The parties communicate and agree upon a negotiation protocol before commencing the negotiation in a meta contract that is formed to govern or control the negotiation process. The automatic negotiation may include at least one sub negotiation. Machine-executable rules are specified to enable an automatic negotiation to take place between servers over a communications network. A successful negotiation may result in the formation of an electronic commerce contract. Each party may maintain the contract state of the overall negotiation, which may take place among two or more parties, wherein at least one party may be represented by a broker. Thus, complex negotiations may be handled automatically by the inventive method. The negotiation may be conducted semi-automatically to allow for human intervention in the negotiation process.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer implemented instructions for processing commercial transactions of a user over a large geographic area. The system for processing commercial transactions includes a network, and one or more primary computing nodes connected to the network and a plurality of secondary computing nodes connected to the network in which each of the plurality of secondary computing nodes being associated with one of the plurality of geographic sites. The system also includes product inventories in which the product inventories are associated with one of the geographic sites. A catalog of products identifying the product inventories is present. One or more primary computing nodes notifies the secondary computing nodes of the catalog. A user contacts a first node from the plurality of secondary computing nodes. The user may purchase or place a product order with the first node with the “first node” forwarding the order to one or more primary computing nodes.

Abstract: An apparatus, system and method for active scheduling of event-driven long running processes are provided. The apparatus, system and method receive update information indicating a change in status of a subject of the active scheduling. Based on this changed status and stored scheduling rules, an adapted schedule is generated to accommodate the change in status. The adapted schedule is further modified based on historical information to compensate for historically predicted events that may conflict with events in the adapted schedule.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer implemented instructions for generating a customized catalog for an entity or organization. Items from a base catalog are presented to a user located at a remote data processing system. One or more items are selected by a user through a process of “meta-shopping”. The selected items are placed in a set, also referred to as a “meta-shopping cart”, used to generate the customized catalog. Terms for purchasing items in the customized catalog are associated with the customized catalog. Further, a protocol for purchasing items from the customized catalog may be established, and the customized catalog is then placed on a Web site.

Abstract: An affinity-based router and method for routing and load balancing in an encapsulated cluster of server nodes is disclosed. The system consists of a multi-node server, wherein any of the server nodes can handle a client request, but wherein clients have affinity to one or more of the server nodes that are preferred to handle a client request. Such affinity is due to state at the servers either due to previous routing requests, or data affinity at the server. At the multi-node server, a node may be designated as a TCP router. The address of the TCP router is given out to clients, and client requests are sent thereto. The TCP router selects one of the nodes in the multi-node server to process the client request, and routes the request to this server; in addition, the TCP router maintains affinity tables, containing affinity records, indicating which node a client was routed to.

Abstract: A system and method for hierarchically caching objects includes one or more level 1 nodes, each including at least one level 1 cache; one or more level 2 nodes within which the objects are permanently stored or generated upon request, each level 2 node coupled to at least one of the one or more level 1 nodes and including one or more level 2 caches; and means for storing, in a coordinated manner, one or more objects in at least one level 1 cache and/or at least one level 2 cache, based on a set of one or more criteria.

Abstract: A system and method for hierarchically caching objects includes one or more level 1 nodes, each including at least one level 1 cache; one or more level 2 nodes within which the objects are permanently stored or generated upon request, each level 2 node coupled to at least one of the one or more level 1 nodes and including one or more level 2 caches; and a storage control device for storing, in a coordinated manner, one or more objects in at least one level 1 cache and/or at least one level 2 cache, based on a set of one or more criteria.

Abstract: An affinity-based router and method for routing and load balancing in an encapsulated cluster of server nodes is disclosed. The system consists of a multi-node server, wherein any of the server nodes can handle a client request, but wherein clients have affinity to one or more of the server nodes that are preferred to handle a client request. Such affinity is due to state at the servers either due to previous routing requests, or data affinity at the server. At the multi-node server, a node may be designated as a TCP router. The address of the TCP router is given out to clients, and client requests are sent thereto. The TCP router selects one of the nodes in the multi-node server to process the client request, and routes the request to this server; in addition, the TCP router maintains affinity tables, containing affinity records, indicating which node a client was routed to.