| Patent application number | Description | Published |
| 20090254654 | COMPUTER NETWORK - A peer-to-peer network operating in accordance with a service-oriented architecture is disclosed. The peers in the network request services from one another and each keep a record of the quality of service they receive from the other peers. The peers can operate in two modes of service provider selection. In a first mode, the selection is so as to favour service providers which have provided the peer with good service in the past. In a second mode, the selection is probabilistic and can therefore select service providers other than those that have provided good service in the past. Each device keeps track of the relative success of adopting the second mode of selection. By occasionally using the second mode of selection and adopting the second mode of selection more frequently should the relative success of adopting the second mode of selection rise, a more rapid adjustment by the network to changing network conditions is enabled. This leads to a better utilisation of the resources of the computers of the network than has hitherto been achieved. The invention finds particular application in distributed applications which dynamically select a Web Service to perform a function at run-time. | 10-08-2009 |
| 20100332478 | ELECTRONIC RESOURCE ANNOTATION - A distributed system is described in which resource utilisation decisions depend upon the categorisation of resource descriptions stored in the distributed system. In the principal embodiment, the resource descriptions are web service descriptions which are augmented with tags (i.e. descriptive words or phrases) entered by users and/or by web service administrators. A service taxonomy is constructed on the basis of the tags, and is subsequently used in suggesting tags to the user which the user might want to ascribe to the service in question. This leads to a more coherent and focussed set of tags in the system, which in turns results in better resource utilisation decisions and hence a more efficient use of the resources of the distributed system. | 12-30-2010 |
| 20100332964 | ELECTRONIC RESOURCE ANNOTATION - A distributed system is described in which resource utilisation decisions depend upon the categorisation of resource descriptions stored in the distributed system. In the principal embodiment, the resource descriptions are web service descriptions which are augmented with tags (i.e. descriptive words or phrases) entered by users and/or by web service administrators. The system stores, for different groups of users, groups of tags popularly used by users within those groups. By monitoring tags input by a user, and proposing tags to the user from any groups which are under-represented in tags input by the user, a more balanced set of tags describing resources in the system is obtained. This leads to a more coherent and focussed set of tags in the system, which in turns results in better resource utilisation decisions and hence a more efficient use of the resources of the distributed system | 12-30-2010 |