Abstract: A method including, for a set of historical and/or ongoing business initiatives, determining key negative and positive performance factors by a computer from a structured taxonomy of negative and positive performance factors stored in a memory; modeling at least one of the performance factors for the ongoing business initiative or a new business initiative at at least one level of the hierarchical taxonomy. The key negative and positive performance factors are modeled based, at least partially, upon a likelihood of occurrence of the key negative performance factors during the business initiative, and based, at least partially, upon potential impact of the key performance factors on the business initiative. The method further includes providing the modeled performance factors in a report to a user, where the report identifies the modeled performance factors, and the potential impact of the at least one modeled performance factor.

Abstract: A system for reliable multicast distribution includes a primary content engine and a backup content engine sender. The primary content engine sender sends out a multicast message of content to selected content engine receivers. The sender waits for negative acknowledgments from the selected content engine receivers declaring that content was not received. If a negative acknowledgment is received, the sender resends the multicast message a predetermined number of times. If the content is still not received after the number of multicast passes is exhausted, the sender sends out unicast messages to those receivers still requesting content. If the primary sender does not respond to a negative acknowledgment, the receiver sends a second negative acknowledgment to the backup multicast sender. The backup responds with the data requested in the negative acknowledgment and so is able to begin data distribution at the point where the primary sender left off without maintaining synchronicity with the primary sender.