Abstract: One embodiment is a method that receives a list of service providers offering services at web sites and extracts content from the web sites to identify the services offered by the service providers. The method then populates service registries with the content.

Abstract: Candidate service providers for a desired service are ranked. Terms describing service requirements for a desired service are determined. Service capability documents describing the services of the candidate service providers are determined using the terms describing the service requirements. Using singular value decomposition (SVD) and a metric, similarities between the terms describing the service requirements and the service capability documents are determined. The candidate service providers are ranked based on the similarities.

Abstract: Terms are extracted from service description documents describing desired services, and the terms are used to search for candidate service providers operable to provide the desired services. A matrix of terms and documents are determined from the service description documents. Singular value decomposition (SVD) is used to decompose the matrix. Eigen vectors from the SVD decomposition are weighted by top k singular values in a diagonal matrix S of singular values also generated from the decomposition. The weighted eigen vectors are used to rank terms from the matrix X based on relevance of the terms to the requirements for desired services described in the service description documents.

Abstract: An exemplary embodiment of the present invention provides a method of identifying providers. The method includes obtaining a results document from a search, wherein the results document comprises references to documents that contain a keyword. analyzing the results document to identify a plurality of the references. The method includes accessing each of the documents using the identified references and analyzing each of the accessed documents to determine a probabilistic value that the accessed document is associated with a provide.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention recite a system and computer-implemented method for sizing enterprise-application systems. In one embodiment of the present invention, a ratio of a plurality of pre-defined benchmarks is determined. The workload of the ratio-of pre-defined benchmarks corresponds to a desired workload of an enterprise application system. The ratio of the plurality of pre-defined benchmarks is then used as a second benchmark for testing the enterprise application system.

Abstract: Information from control plug-ins organized in a hierarchy is received. The control plug-ins control an allocation of resources for an application. Relationships between the control plug-ins are determined based on the received information, and a topology of the control plug-ins is generated.

Abstract: According to an embodiment, a method of managing resources in a shared computing environment begins with a first step of receiving a resource request object from a client. The resource request object requests resources from a resource pool of the shared computing environment for a time period. The method continues with a second step of assigning the resources to the client, thereby forming assigned resources. In a third step, the method sends a resource access handle to the client. The resource access handle provides the client access to the resources by a start time. The method employs a step of tracking the assigned resources and other state information by amendments to the resource request object. According to another embodiment, a system for managing resources in a shared computing environment employs the method.

Abstract: A business process (15) having a number of computer implemented steps using software application components, to enable automatic deployment on computing infrastructure, is modelled by a management system. It automatically derives a grounded model (55) of the business process from an unbound model (25) of the business process, based on an infrastructure design template (35). The unbound model specifies the application components to be used, and the grounded model adds a complete design of the computing infrastructure to be used. The use of an infrastructure design template can reduce the large number of options to be evaluated to help reduce the complexity of generating or changing the grounded model. The infrastructure design template formally relates the business process, application components and infrastructure design so that designs, or changes which are inconsistent or inefficient can be avoided. Thus more automation of the designing and changing the design is feasible.

Abstract: A method of determining a placement of services of a distributed application onto nodes of a distributed resource infrastructure comprises first, second, and third steps. The first step forms communication constraints between node pairs. The communication constraints ensure that a sum of transport demands between a particular node pair does not exceed a transport capacity between the particular node pair. Each term of the sum comprises a product of a first placement variable, a second placement variable, and the transport demand between the services associated with the first and second placement variables. The second step forms an objective. The communication constraints and the objective comprise an integer program. The third step employs a local search solution to solve the integer program, which determines the placement of the services onto the nodes.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for automated advertising and matching capabilities of data centers. In various embodiments, respective capability data sets are registered with a computing arrangement for one or more capability descriptors of a plurality of data centers. Each capability data set indicates resources available at and offered by the associated data center. To determine the capabilities available from other data centers, a data center, a user, a user's application or a data center operator submits a query to the computing arrangement. The query indicates capability requirements of the requesting data center. The computing arrangement responds with the capability data sets that match the query.

Abstract: A method of determining a placement of services of a distributed application onto nodes of a distributed resource infrastructure. In an embodiment of the present invention, a placement indicator for a specific service is provided. Communication constraints between node pairs are also provided. The communication constraints ensure that a sum of transport demands between a particular node pair does not exceed a transport capacity between the particular node pair. Constraints can be expressed for preventing unwanted placements. Preferences can be expressed for preferring specified placements. Each term of the sum of transport demands comprises a product of a first placement variable, a second placement variable, and the transport demand between the services associated with the first and second placement variables. The placement indicator, the communication constraints, and an objective comprise an integer program.

Abstract: According to one embodiment, a method comprises storing metric definitions for at least one monitored component in a machine-readable format to a data storage device. The method further comprises enabling access by at least one monitoring tool to the metric definitions via a metric introspection interface. The method further comprises the at least one monitoring tool autonomously comprehending the metric definitions for use in processing monitoring data collected for the at least one monitored component.

Abstract: A method for format-independent advertising capabilities of data centers. In various embodiments, respective capability data sets are registered to a computing arrangement for one or more data centers. Each capability data set indicates resources available at a data center. Respective format descriptions are associated with the capability data sets, wherein each format description defines a syntax in which capabilities are described in a capability data set. Respective terms descriptions of terms are associated with the capability data sets, wherein each terms description defines the semantic meaning of a terms used in a capability data set. The computing arrangement receives queries that indicate capability requirements of a data center. In response to a query, the capability data sets that match the query are provided to the requesting entity.

Abstract: A system for workload placement among data centers includes a plurality of grid resource allocation managers (GRAMs), wherein the GRAMs are configured to obtain information from the data centers. The system also includes an information service configured to receive information from the plurality of GRAMs and a broker configured to receive an application request and to determine resource requirements from the application request, wherein the broker is configured to determine which of the data centers contains adequate resources to perform the requested application. The system further includes a co-allocator configured to receive information pertaining to the data centers having the adequate resources, wherein the co-allocator is further configured to select one of the data centers to perform the requested application based upon energy efficiency characteristics of the data centers.

Abstract: In an embodiment of a method of determining a value changes for a placement variable as part of a local search solution to an integer programming problem that models placement of services of a distributed application onto nodes of a distributed resource infrastructure, an unsatisfied communication constraint is selected. The unsatisfied communication constraint includes a sum of terms where at least some of the terms comprise products of placement variables. Stores are created for allowable changes of value for the variables in the unsatisfied communication constraint. The unsatisfied communication constraint is parsed through by term. For each variable in a term, the stores are updated with a change in the term for each of the allowable changes of the value while maintaining other variables constant. A variable to receive the value change, and possibly a value for the variable, are chosen based upon the store which meets at least one improvement criterion.

Abstract: A system and method for managing a plurality of agents in a plurality networked computing hosts. In various embodiments, a repository is provided with references to installation code for installing the agents. Boot stubs are executable on the hosts. The boot stubs retrieve references to the installation code and load the installation code on the hosts. A directory contains topology data that indicate the hosts on which boot stubs and agents are installed, and an initiator retrieves the topology data and initiate execution of the boot stubs.

Abstract: According to one embodiment, a method comprises providing a machine-readable meta-model that defines the structure of how information is represented in at least one data model. The method further comprises using, by a data accessor, the meta-model for interpreting the at least one data model. According to another embodiment, a method comprises providing a machine-readable metric meta-model that defines a syntax for defining metric models, and defining a metric model in the syntax defined by the metric meta-model. The method further comprises associating the metric model with a monitoring source in a monitoring environment, wherein the metric model defines monitoring data available at the monitoring source, and interpreting, by a monitoring tool, the metric model based on the metric meta-model.

Abstract: According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method comprises providing a reporting network for communicating data among parts of a monitoring architecture as desired, wherein the reporting network is dynamically configurable programmatically. The method further comprises maintaining a machine-readable model of the monitoring architecture, and autonomously adapting configuration of the reporting network based on the machine-readable model.

Abstract: According to one embodiment, a method comprises storing metric definitions for at least one monitored component in a machine-readable format to a data storage device. The method further comprises enabling access by at least one monitoring tool to the metric definitions via a metric introspection interface. The method further comprises the at least one monitoring tool autonomously comprehending the metric definitions for use in processing monitoring data collected for the at least one monitored component.

Abstract: According to one embodiment, a method comprises providing a metric reporting configuration interface for enabling configuration of metrics included in monitoring data collected for at least one monitored component. The method further comprises supporting, by the metric reporting configuration interface, defining of configuration parameters of at least one metric to be reported in monitoring data collected for the at least one monitored component. The method further comprises collecting monitoring data for the at least one monitored component, and reporting the monitoring data in accordance with the defined configuration parameters.