Patent Application
20140074676
1. Technical Field
The exemplary and non-limiting embodiments of the invention relate generally to tracking for determining a royalty and, more particularly, to a royalty for an individual contribution in a compilation.
2. Brief Description of Prior Developments
Royalty distribution is normally based on a business-to-business agreement. On a cloud platform, an individual user can contribute to an image or composed service, and make it public as a catalog item.
The following summary is merely intended to be exemplary. The summary is not intended to limit the scope of the claims.
In accordance with one aspect, a system includes at least one memory having a plurality of individual contributions forming a compilation stored in the at least one memory; and at least one processor connected to the at least one memory. The processor is configured to identify at least one of the individual contributions; and determine a royalty distribution value for the identified individual contribution based, at least partially, upon at least one weighted metric regarding the compilation.
In accordance with another aspect, a system comprises at least one memory having a plurality of individual contributions forming a compilation stored in the at least one memory; and at least one processor connected to the at least one memory. The processor is configured to use provenance data associated with a catalog item to track an individual contribution in a compilation of contributions, where the compilation is stored in the at least one memory; and dynamically compute a royalty distribution for the individual contribution based, at least partially, upon at least one metric related to the contributions which form the compilation.
In accordance with another aspect, a non-transitory program storage device readable by a machine is provided, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine, the operations comprising identifying an individual contribution to a compilation, where the compilation comprises a plurality of individual contributions; and determining, at least partially with a computer processor, a royalty distribution value for the identified individual contribution based, at least partially, upon at least one weighted metric regarding the compilation.
In accordance with another aspect, a non-transitory program storage device readable by a machine is provided, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine, the operations comprising using provenance data associated with a catalog item to track an individual contribution in a compilation of contributions, where the compilation is stored in a memory; and dynamically computing a royalty distribution for the individual contribution based, at least partially, upon at least one metric related to the contributions which form the compilation.
The foregoing aspects and other features are explained in the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
It is understood in advance that although this disclosure includes a detailed description on cloud computing, implementation of the teachings recited herein are not limited to a cloud computing environment. Rather, embodiments of the present invention are capable of being implemented in conjunction with any other type of computing environment now known or later developed.
Cloud computing is a model of service delivery for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, network bandwidth, servers, processing, memory, storage, applications, virtual machines, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or interaction with a provider of the service. This cloud model may include at least five characteristics, at least three service models, and at least four deployment models.
Characteristics are as follows:
On-demand self-service: a cloud consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with the service's provider.
Broad network access: capabilities are available over a network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).
Resource pooling: the provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the consumer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter).
Rapid elasticity: capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out and rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased in any quantity at any time.
Measured service: cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.
Service Models are as follows:
Software as a Service (SaaS): the capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through a thin client interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email). The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.
Platform as a Service (PaaS): the capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including networks, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly application hosting environment configurations.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): the capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls).
Deployment Models are as follows:
Private cloud: the cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party and may exist on-premises or off-premises.
Community cloud: the cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party and may exist on-premises or off-premises.
Public cloud: the cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.
Hybrid cloud: the cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds).
A cloud computing environment is service oriented with a focus on statelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability. At the heart of cloud computing is an infrastructure comprising a network of interconnected nodes.
Referring now to
In cloud computing node 10 there is a computer system/server 12, which is operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples of well-known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with computer system/server include, but are not limited to, personal computer systems, server computer systems, thin clients, thick clients, handheld or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputer systems, mainframe computer systems, and distributed cloud computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.
Computer system/server 12 may be described in the general context of computer system executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer system. Generally, program modules may include routines, programs, objects, components, logic, data structures, and so on that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Computer system/server 12 may be practiced in distributed cloud computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed cloud computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer system storage media including memory storage devices.
As shown in
Bus 18 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus.
Computer system/server 12 typically includes a variety of computer system readable media. Such media may be any available media that is accessible by computer system/server 12, and it includes both volatile and non-volatile media, removable and non-removable media.
System memory 28 can include computer system readable media in the form of volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM) 30 and/or cache memory 32. Computer system/server 12 may further include other removable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer system storage media. By way of example only, storage system 34 can be provided for reading from and writing to a non-removable, non-volatile magnetic media (not shown and typically called a “hard drive”). Although not shown, a magnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable, non-volatile magnetic disk (e.g., a “floppy disk”), and an optical disk drive for reading from or writing to a removable, non-volatile optical disk such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or other optical media can be provided. In such instances, each can be connected to bus by one or more data media interfaces. As will be further depicted and described below, memory 28 may include at least one program product having a set (e.g., at least one) of program modules that are configured to carry out the functions of embodiments of the invention.
Program/utility 40, having a set (at least one) of program modules 42, may be stored in memory 28 by way of example, and not limitation, as well as an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data. Each of the operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data or some combination thereof, may include an implementation of a networking environment. Program modules 42 generally carry out the functions and/or methodologies of embodiments of the invention as described herein.
Computer system/server 12 may also communicate with one or more external devices 14 such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a display 24, etc.; one or more devices that enable a user to interact with computer system/server 12; and/or any devices (e.g., network card, modem, etc.) that enable computer system/server 12 to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Such communication can occur via Input/Output (I/O) interfaces 22. Still yet, computer system/server 12 can communicate with one or more networks such as a local area network (LAN), a general wide area network (WAN), and/or a public network (e.g., the Internet) via network adapter 20. As depicted, network adapter 20 communicates with the other components of computer system/server 12 via bus 18. It should be understood that although not shown, other hardware and/or software components could be used in conjunction with computer system/server 12. Examples, include, but are not limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data archival storage systems, etc.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Hardware and software layer 60 includes hardware and software components. Examples of hardware components include mainframes, in one example IBM® ZSERIES® systems; RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture based servers, in one example IBM PSERIES® systems; IBM XSERIES® systems; IBM BLADECENTER® systems; storage devices; networks and networking components. Examples of software components include network application server software, in one example IBM WEBSPHERE® application server software; and database software, in one example IBM DB2® database software. (IBM, ZSERIES, PSERIES, XSERIES, BLADECENTER, WEBSPHERE, and DB2 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation registered in many jurisdictions worldwide).
Virtualization layer 62 provides an abstraction layer from which the following examples of virtual entities may be provided: virtual servers; virtual storage; virtual networks, including virtual private networks; virtual applications and operating systems; and virtual clients.
In one example, management layer 64 may provide the functions described below. Resource provisioning provides dynamic procurement of computing resources and other resources that are utilized to perform tasks within the cloud computing environment. Metering and Pricing provide cost tracking as resources are utilized within the cloud computing environment, and billing or invoicing for consumption of these resources. In one example, these resources may comprise application software licenses. Security provides identity verification for cloud consumers and tasks, as well as protection for data and other resources. User portal provides access to the cloud computing environment for consumers and system administrators. Service level management provides cloud computing resource allocation and management such that required service levels are met. Service Level Agreement (SLA) planning and fulfillment provide pre-arrangement for, and procurement of, cloud computing resources for which a future requirement is anticipated in accordance with an SLA.
Workloads layer 66 provides examples of functionality for which the cloud computing environment may be utilized. Examples of workloads and functions which may be provided from this layer include: mapping and navigation; software development and lifecycle management; virtual classroom education delivery; data analytics processing; transaction processing; and
Royalty determination 68 may be provided as one of the functions of the management layer 64. As noted above, in the past, royalty distribution was normally based on a business-to-business agreement. Thus, royalty distribution was based on pre-signed agreement. However, it was hard to follow this model for individual contributors on a cloud platform. On a cloud platform, an individual user can contribute to an image or composed service and make it public as a catalog item. Thus, in the past, royalty distribution could not be done at a finer granularity, such as resource usage for example. A feature as described herein is to keep track of individual contributions and contribution value/impact dynamically, and distribute royalty to them.
Referring also to
The individual contribution may be stored in a memory in a cloud environment. At least some of the plurality of individual contributions may be stored in one or more memories in a cloud environment. The at least one weighted metric may include usage of the individual contribution, by at least one user, relative to usage of at least one other of the plurality of individual contributions of the compilation. The at least one weighted metric may include at least one rating of the individual contribution relative to rating(s) of at least one other of the plurality of individual contributions of the compilation. The at least one weighted metric may include a dependency relationship of the individual contribution relative to at least one other of the plurality of individual contributions of the compilation. It should be noted that an individual contribution of the offering may be a composition of multiple individual contribution bundled together. A “dependency relationship” does not necessarily mean that two components are actually bundled together in one catalog item. The at least one weighted metric may include dependability or a dependability index of the individual contribution relative to dependability of at least one other of the plurality of individual contributions of the compilation or another catalog item. Determining the royalty distribution value may use a weighting system to determine the royalty distribution value for the identified individual contribution. The method may further comprise tracking use of the individual contribution. The method may further comprise using provenance data associated with the individual contribution to track the individual contribution. The method may further comprise dynamically computing the royalty distribution value at different points in time for the individual contribution. The method may further comprise determining a total royalty value to be distributed for the individual contribution for a predetermined period of time based upon the dynamically computed royalty distribution value over that predetermined period of time.
Referring also to
Referring also to
The individual contribution 82A may be stored in a memory in a cloud environment. At least some of the contributions 82A . . . 82N of the compilation 82 may be stored in one or more memories in a cloud environment. Referring also to
Features as describe herein may provide a platform to keep track of individual contributors. Provenance data associated with a catalog item may be recorded to keep track of Providers/Contributors to each item and Component/Part(s) of the item a contributor has contributed to. This may be used to enable the providers to recommend price(s) for their component(s) when the contribution is standalone composable item. The cloud may be used as a market place in which these components would be put together and offered through the cloud. When a new composed item is added to the catalog, the price may be set by the cloud. For example, an initial price may be set by the cloud based at least on (i) the aggregate of all the individual prices, (ii) a cloud base price and (iii) a profit margin. Relative revenue value may be driven, for example, by whether composed items with that component sell (if the component provider overcharged, use may be limited).
Referring also to
In one example embodiment the cloud may be used as an effective “middle man” that pulls in the revenue and, based on the contributors account settings, may then parcel out appropriate royalty(ies).
Features as described herein may be used to monitor the usage of individual parts to identify the relative functional value of the contributions when the contribution is not standalone, such as when embedded in a non-standalone item (a compilation). The usage may be leveraged to compare similar functions, such as different approaches for the same report for example. Different metrics may be used, such as lines of code absolute or relative to the rest of the products for example.
Features as described herein may be used to provide a rating support where users can input their evaluation of the Component/Part(s). The rating may be useful for comparing functions that are very different in nature, such as different reports once a month versus once a day.
Features as described herein may be used to dynamically compute royalty distribution. The features may be used to compute the royalty distribution based on, for example:
Features as described herein may be used to enable an entity, such as an offering manager for example, to fine tune the weight of each royalty computation model, such as through a weighting system using the metrics 88 for example. This may use a relationship between the rest of the parts of the compilation and the composed catalog item to give a bigger weight to a more dependable part for example. Features as described herein may use (if available) an open source solution as a benchmark for normalization of the contribution. A final royalty distribution may be computed by combining the weighted metrics.
The system and method may keep track of individual contributors to a catalog item on cloud via provenance data, and dynamically compute a royalty distribution to meet the requirement of paying individual contributors appropriately.
As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a system, method or computer program product. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in one or more computer readable medium(s) having computer readable program code embodied thereon.
Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storage medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A computer readable signal medium may be any computer readable medium that is not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.
Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
Aspects of the present invention are described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer readable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
Referring also to
Each component that is used may receive royalty based on some measure (usage metric—resource utilization/demand/LOC/user feedback etc). At the resource level, the resource owner may have a slice separate from component contributors. The composition workflow may include the offering add-on as well as the resource charges. This is how payment/royalty may be calculated for the offering composers who composed the offering/solution (with the components) for their time invested in putting the offering together.
An offering may be created from a previous offering (offering is a component). If separate child offerings contain the same component, there may be some mechanism to reduce/increase the royalty for the common component. The royalty appropriation does not need to change. The component contributor may simply receive part of the revenue from each child offering and would correctly get more because it was being used more due to the dual inclusion.
If a composition of multiple resources is created as an offering, the core price per resource may follow straight through, and the royalty within the resource may retain the original appropriation model for the resource. It is possible to apply the royalty model to this composition as well. The diagram shown in
It should be understood that the foregoing description is only illustrative. Various alternatives and modifications can be devised by those skilled in the art. For example, features recited in the various dependent claims could be combined with each other in any suitable combination(s). In addition, features from different embodiments described above could be selectively combined into a new embodiment. Accordingly, the description is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications and variances which fall within the scope of the appended claims.
This is a continuation patent application of copending application Ser. No. 13/613,853 filed Sep. 13, 2012 which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 13613853 | Sep 2012 | US |
| Child | 13661133 | US |
