Abstract: A single space parking meter assembly for retrofitting onto an existing coin vault assembly includes a number of parking meter components enclosed within a protective outer covering that is rotatably or slidably engageable with the coin vault assembly when a bottom surface of the protective outer covering is positioned against or adjacent to an upper surface of the coin vault assembly. A locking mechanism secures the protective outer covering to the coin vault assembly when the protective outer covering is engaged with the coin vault assembly.

Abstract: A parking meter may have a housing that is formed at least significantly of an impact resistant material. In particular, the impact resistant material may comprise one of a polycarbonate copolymer or polycarbonate blended resin, a nylon-based copolymer, or a nylon-based polymer that includes long glass fiber or Kevlar fiber. The housing encloses the parking meter components to provide protection for the parking meter components against an external environment and vandalism attacks.

Abstract: A system and method in accordance with the present invention provides a 3-phase commit client-server protocol that allows the EIS server to detect the sick-but-not-dead situations, identify the resources involved, determine its degraded level, take the actions if needed, and send out a degraded status information message to the client. In a system and method in accordance with the present invention an internal availability monitor analyzes the resources that have not been externalized, such as storage pools, control blocks, etc, and are therefore not available to external monitors.