Bradford A Fisher, 57Galax, VA

6571286, May 27, 2003

Jul 7, 1998

09/111546

Bradford Austin Fisher - Carrboro NC
Anthony Brian OHare - Green Bay WI
Charles Ray Saylor - Raleigh NC

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F 1900

709224, 709227, 370254

A method and system for use within at least one network. The method and system achieve their objects via computing equipment engineered to do the following: define one or more pools of network resources; and assign network resources on the basis of the one or more pools of network resources.

2004016, Aug 26, 2004

Feb 20, 2003

10/370640

Glenn Aikens - Raleigh NC, US
Bradford Fisher - Chapel Hill NC, US
Brian Jeffrey - Cary NC, US
Kevin Kuhner - Cary NC, US
Robert Nielsen - Chapel Hill NC, US
Jeffrey Summers - Cary NC, US
Doug Willenborg - Apex NC, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F015/173

709/225000

A service level management (SLM) configuration system and method. The SLM configuration system can include a data store having one or more references to metric components. A discovery processor can be coupled to the data store and programmed to identify individual ones of the metric components through the references which can be incorporated in a service level agreement (SLA) and managed by an associated SLM system. Finally, a registration processor can be coupled both to the discovery processor and to the associated SLM system. The registration processor can have a configuration for adding identified ones of the metric components to the associated SLM system for management by the associated SLM system when the identified ones of the metric components are incorporated into an SLA managed by the associated SLM system.

2005007, Mar 31, 2005

Sep 30, 2003

10/677876

Glenn Aikens - Raleigh NC, US
Shawn Clymer - Raleigh NC, US
Bradford Fisher - Chapel Hill NC, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F017/60

705001000

A composite, multi-tier SLA. A composite, multi-tier SLA can include two or more service offerings having both internal use only service level objectives and external service level objectives. The composite, multi-tier SLA further can include two or more SLAs combined into a single, composite SLA. Each of the SLAs can correspond to a specific one of the service offerings. Moreover, the SLAs in the composite SLA can have a hierarchical organization based upon dependencies between the service offerings. Notably, each of the SLAs can correspond to one of an outsourced service offering, an internal service offering and an external service offering. Additionally, at least one of the SLAs can expose an external service level objective of a corresponding internal service offering which has been redefined as an internal use only service level objective in an SLA at a higher tier in the hierarchical organization.

2005007, Mar 31, 2005

Sep 30, 2003

10/675726

Joshua Allen - Durham NC, US
Bryan Ellington - Cary NC, US
Bradford Fisher - Chapel Hill NC, US
Robert Nielsen - Chapel Hill NC, US
Jacob Yackenovich - Morrisville NC, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F015/16
G06F015/173

709223000, 709227000

A method, system and apparatus for estimating an SLA breach value. The method can include processing resource data to identify an acceptable SLA breach value; and, displaying the acceptable SLA breach value through a user interface. The processing step can include identifying a best practices SLA breach value based upon resource data for an aggregation of customers. Alternatively, the processing step can include identifying an average SLA breach value for a specific customer. As a further alternative, the identifying step can include identifying an average SLA breach value for a specific customer for a specific resource. As yet a further alternative, the processing step can include identifying an SLA breach value trend based upon past measured historical systems management data; and, predicting a future SLA breach value based upon the trend. In all cases, the acceptable SLA breach value can be increased by a fixed proportion.

2005007, Mar 31, 2005

Sep 26, 2003

10/672777

Bradford Fisher - Chapel Hill NC, US
Randy Rendahl - Durham NC, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F015/173

709224000, 709225000

A system, method and apparatus for performing a real-time service level agreement (SLA) impact analysis. In the system of the invention, a service level manager can be programmed to establish a plurality of SLAs directly implicating selected resources. A relationship database further can be configured for coupling to one or more management applications programmed to manage the selected resources. Finally, a modeling and evaluation system can be communicatively coupled to the relationship database and the service level manager and programmed to perform a real-time SLA impact analysis based both upon resources directly implicated by the SLAs and also upon resources which are related to the resources directly implicated by the SLAs.

2006004, Feb 23, 2006

Oct 15, 2004

10/711956

John Dinger - Cary NC, US
Bradford Fisher - Chapel Hill NC, US
Robert Uthe - Morrisville NC, US

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION - Armonk NY

G06F 15/16

709229000

A method to automatically define resources forming an IT service may include tracking resources utilized in responding to a request or set of requests or performing a transaction or a set of transactions. The method may also include automatically defining resources that form an IT service by aggregating all resources utilized to respond to all requests or to perform all transactions.

2006009, Apr 27, 2006

Sep 29, 2004

10/953631

Fonda Daniels - Cary NC, US
Bradford Fisher - Chapel Hill NC, US
David Kumhyr - Austin TX, US
Robert Uthe - Morrisville NC, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06F 9/44

719320000, 719329000

A method, system, and computer instructions for managing interruptions across applications in a data processing system. A user's focus is monitored within the data processing system. Responsive to a request to present a window in the foreground, the priority level of an application currently containing the user focus is compared with a priority level of an application presenting the window. If the application presenting the window has a higher or equal priority than the application currently containing the user focus, the window is presented in the foreground. If the application presenting the window has a lower priority than the application currently containing the user's focus, the request to present the window in the foreground is ignored. Information regarding the request is then stored in a log for later viewing.

2006015, Jul 13, 2006

Jan 11, 2005

11/034338

Bradford Fisher - Chapel Hill NC, US
Robert Uthe - Morrisville NC, US

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

G06Q 99/00
G07G 1/00
G06F 17/30

705001000, 705010000

A method of automatically and intelligently maintaining business systems, including information technology assets. A management system automatically maintains a business system based on relationships among resources within the business system and/or on a priority rank that establishes the value or importance of a particular resource. The management system, and optionally the user, can also create rules for maintaining relationships among resources and for maintaining relationships among different business systems. The management system automatically adapts to a change in rules by maintaining relationships among resources and business systems based on a change in the rules.