Abstract:
A method for operating a commissioned e-commerce service provider provides services to businesses on a computerized network such as the Internet in exchange for a small commission on the commercial transactions generated using those services. Unlike most ISPs that provide services to individuals and businesses, the e-commerce service provider preferably provides Internet services for businesses operating web sites based on the amount of service utilized by the individual or business. Instead of paying a monthly fee for the Internet services required to host a web site or operate and e-commerce site, the business contracts with the e-commerce service provider to provide these services based on usage of these services. Preferably, the usage rate is tiered in accordance with the amount of traffic at the site to provide a nominal level of service at a lower rate, yet allow for an exceptional volume of traffic to be accommodated by the site at a higher rate without having the site fail or the service become overwhelmed.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. sec. 119(e)(2) to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/218,602, filed Jul. 17, 2000. This application is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/907,520 filed Jul. 17, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,844,513, which is a continuation-in-part of the following patent that is assigned to the common assignee of this application: “Method and System for Providing Dynamic Host Service Management Across Disparate Accounts/Sites”, Ser. No. 09/710,095, filed Nov. 10, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,816,905. This application is related to the following patents that are assigned to the common assignee of this application: “Scalable Internet Engine”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,809; and “System for Distributing Requests Across Multiple Servers Using Dynamic Metrics”, U.S. Pat. No. 6,938,256. 
    
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates generally to the field of data processing business practices. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and system for operating a commissioned e-commerce service provider that provides services to businesses on a computerized network such as the Internet in exchange for a small commission on the commercial transactions generated using those services. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The explosive growth of the Internet as a computerized network has been driven to large extent by the emergence of commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Commercial ISPs provide users with access to the Internet in the same way that telephone companies provide customers with access to the international telephone network. The vast majority of commercial ISPs charge for this access in ways similar to the ways in which telephone companies charge their customers. Originally, it was customary for an ISP to charge its users based on the time they were connected, just as telephone companies charge for long distance services. Now, most ISPs have adopted a flat monthly access rate that is similar to the way in which telephone companies charge for local telephone service. All of these charges are essentially metered charges where a fee is charged for access for a given period of time, i.e. so many cents per minute or so many dollars per month. 
     There are many reasons for the similarities between the metered billing practices of ISPs and telephone companies. Both the computerized Internet network and international telephone network utilize the same backbone of high-speed, high bandwidth communication channels to carry voice and data traffic over long distances. A significant portion of the data traffic between users and ISPs also occurs over local telephone networks using dial-up modems. Many of the larger ISPs are divisions of, or affiliates of, telephone companies. Like telephone companies, ISPs may be subject to governmental regulation as common carriers or utilities. Perhaps most importantly, there are only a handful of firms that provide the backbone network connections required by an ISP and all of these firms utilize metered billing practices in charging for these carriage costs. Backbone network connection costs constitute a significant portion of the typical cost profile of an ISP, and, in the case of the non-North American ISP can constitute the vast majority of the cost profile of that provider. The details of how such metered billing arrangements for telephonic and network connections are accomplished have been the subject, for example, of U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,764,747, 5,187,710, 5,303,297, 5,351,286, 5,745,884, 5,828,737, 5,946,670, 5,956,391 and 5,956,697. 
     For ISPs, numerous software billing packages are available to account and bill for these metered charges, such as XaCCT from rens.com and ISP Power from inovaware.com. Other software programs have been developed to aid in the management of ISP networks, such as IP Magic from lightspeedsystems.com, Internet Services Management from resonate.com and MAMBA from luminate.com. The management and operation of an ISP also has been the subject of numerous articles and seminars, such as Hursti, Jani, “Management of the Access Network and Service Provisioning,”  Seminar in Internetworking , Apr. 19, 1999. An example of the offerings of a typical ISP at a given monthly rate in terms of available configurations of hardware, software, maintenance and support for providing commercial levels of Internet access and website hosting can be found at rackspace.com. 
     The various factors involved in establishing pricing strategies for ISPs are discussed in detail by Geoff Huston in  ISP Survival Guide: Strategies For Running A Competitive ISP , Chap. 13, pp. 497-535 (1999). He identifies five major attributes of the access service of an ISP that are folded into the retail tariff to be charged by that ISP, including access, time, volume, distance and quality. Where cost of service operations are greater than the carriage costs, it is typical to use a monthly flat rate access pricing because of the ease of implementation, simplicity, scalability and competitive environment for these providers. Where the carriage costs dominate, a monthly flat rate tariff may present an unacceptable business risk, and some form of incremental tariff structure based on more closely monitored metered usage may be preferred. Although Mr. Huston expects the ISP industry to stabilize and consolidate as larger players begin to dominate the industry, he notes that predictions of market stability within the Internet continue to be confounded by the experience of constant robust growth and evolution in service models. 
     One such point of evolution has been the emergence of a small number of ISPs, such as netzero.com and freeInet.com, which are providing their service for free to individual end users. Instead of charging an access fee or tariff, the business model for these ISPs relies on advertising revenue generated by banner ads that are constantly displayed on a user&#39;s screen during the time when the user is connected to the service. In many ways, this business model is similar to the business model of commercial broadcast television where the revenue generated by advertisements underwrites the costs of providing the service. 
     Another offshoot from the services provided by conventional ISPs has been the growth of Application Systems Providers (ASPs) such as applicast.com and usi.net, as well as Enhanced or Enterprise Solution Providers (ESPs) such as cwusa.com and hostpro.net. Although there is no clear definition of the precise set of services provided by ASPs and ESPs, the business model is similar to the mainframe service bureau model practiced by Electronic Data Systems and others in which a defined portion of a companies computer processing needs are outsourced to a third party. ASPs and ESPs provide services tailored to meet some, most or all of a customer&#39;s needs with respect to application hosting, site development, e-commerce management and server deployment in exchange for a periodic fee. In the context of server deployment, the fees are customarily based on the particular hardware and software configurations that a customer will specify for hosting the customer&#39;s applications or web site. As with conventional ISPs, the more powerful the hardware and software and the more support services that are provided, the higher the monthly fee. 
     Most of the patents to date related to Internet billing and ISPs have focused on providing a secure way of conducting transactions over the Internet by involving the ISP in the payment chain between an e-commerce merchant and a purchaser that is a user of the ISP. Examples of these secured payment systems involving an ISP are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,794,221, 5,845,267 and 5,899,980. While these kinds of payment systems may be used in a limited capacity, the widespread acceptance of transacting purchases over the Internet using credit card information provided over a secured server link has surpassed most of the need for these kind of systems. 
     U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,092 describes an online development software tool with fee setting capabilities that allows the developer of a web site, for example, to develop a fee structure for an online service where fees can be levied against both users and third parties in response to logging onto an online service, performing searches or downloading information. U.S. Pat. No. 6,035,281 describes a system for multiparty billing for Internet access where participating parties are allocated a share of the billing based on a predetermined function of the content accessed and the bandwidth used during the access. While there continues to be a subset of Internet access that operates on a “pay-per-view” basis, much of the need for these kind of accounting tools has diminished as the trend is to make the vast majority of information accessed over the Internet available free of such pay-per-view charges. 
     European Patent Appl. No. 0 844 577 A3 describes a multi-level marketing computer network server where upon the completion of a transaction at the server, the server generates multi-level marketing commission payments due to “participants” in the multi-level marketing program as a result of the sale. While this application describes the use of a network server, the focus of this application is not on the way in which an ISP would be operated, but rather represents the automation of a conventional multi-level marketing arrangement where commissions are paid to a series of individuals within the multi-level marketing organization for each sale. 
     Although numerous enhancements and improvements have been made in terms of the way that ISPs are managed and many programs and tools have been developed to aid in the operation of ISP networks, the basic way in which ISPs charge for their services has not changed since the Internet become a predominantly commercial network. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention is a method for operating a commissioned e-commerce service provider that provides services to businesses on a computerized network such as the Internet in exchange for a small commission on the commercial transactions generated using those services. Unlike most ISPs that provide services to individuals and businesses, the commissioned e-commerce service provider preferably provides Internet services for businesses operating web sites or other application that generate e-commerce transactions for the business. Instead of paying a monthly fee for the Internet services required to host a web site or operate and e-commerce site, the business contracts with the commissioned e-commerce service provider to provide these services based on receiving a percentage commission of the commercial transactions generated using these services. The commission percentage is tiered in accordance with the amount of traffic at the site to provide a nominal level of service at a lower commission rate, yet allow for an exceptional volume of traffic to be accommodated by the site at a higher commission rate without having the site fail or the service become overwhelmed. In this way, a business is not locked into a given capacity of service based the specific amount of hardware, for example, that was purchased by their agreement with the ISP. Instead, the commissioned e-commerce service provider allocates servers and resources on an as-needed basis to the web sites and applications of the business in response to the immediate demand for Internet access to those web sites and applications. In addition, it is not necessary for the business to waste scarce financial resources by scaling its service capacity in order to handle a small number of peak access times. 
     In a preferred embodiment, the base tier of the commission percentage is established in relation to the anticipated or actual average usage of services as measured against the volume of commercial transactions during this average usage. A second tier of the commission percentage is defined at a predetermined increase above the base tier in the event that immediate usage exceeds a first predefined level above the average usage. A third tier of the commission percentage is defined at a predetermined increase above the second tier in the event that immediate usage exceeds a second predefined level above the average usage. Preferably, average usage is a combined measure of the number of simultaneous access requests and the amount of access bandwidth required to satisfy those requests prior to a timeout of the request by a user. 
     In a preferred embodiment, the CESP is hosted by an Internet engine that is operably connected to the Internet to provide a data center and other related host server management services to Internet account or site customers, who in turn pay a fee for these services that is at least partially based on at least one attribute related to host server services use. A customer benefits from the business method because the commission part of the fee is based on at least one attribute related to host server services usage rather than being a fixed fee charged “by the box” (by the server unit), bandwidth, or square footage of space used. This flexibility allows host server management services to be offered to customers in a manner more analogous to other like services to which the customers are accustomed, or in a manner that can nearly approximate billing methods already used by the host server management services provider or an affiliate. If desirable, for example, a service agreement can be structured according to a customer&#39;s unique requirements and billing structure, such as invoicing based on the number of hits, number of connections, number of transactions, revenue from transactions, or a combination of these models. Under this business method, the host server management services provider carries the risk of the services so that the customer can focus on marketing its content. 
     Preferably, the host server management services provider guarantees a certain maximum user level or capability to customers, which the host server management services provider is responsible for meeting regardless of the resources required. This guarantee, incorporated into a service agreement, significantly assists customers such as .coms, B2B emporiums, and service bureaus, among others, in running massive advertising campaigns and to offer advanced services without fearing that they will run out of compute capacity. MP3 sites can offer the latest titles, and DVD sites, for example, can stream titles knowing that sufficient resources will be available to handle peak demands without the need for the customer to oversubscribe to a given number of server boxes as would otherwise be necessary under conventional pricing arrangements for hosted services. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a simplified block diagram of a prior art arrangement of a server farm for a hosted service provider. 
         FIG. 2  is a graphic representation of Internet traffic in relation to server capacity for a prior art server farm hosting multiple customer accounts. 
         FIG. 3  is a simplified block diagram of the arrangement of a server farm in accordance with the present invention. 
         FIG. 4  is a simplified block diagram similar to  FIG. 3  showing the dynamic reallocation of servers from a first customer account to a second customer account to address a hardware failure. 
         FIG. 5  is a simplified block diagram similar to  FIG. 3  showing the dynamic reallocation of servers from a first customer account to a second customer account to address an increased usage demand. 
         FIG. 6  is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of the components of a server farm in accordance with the present invention. 
         FIG. 7  is an exploded perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the hardware for the server farm in accordance with the present invention. 
         FIG. 8  is a block diagram showing the hierarchical relation of the various software layers utilized by the present invention for a given customer account. 
         FIG. 9  is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention implemented across geographically disparate sites. 
         FIG. 10  is a graphic representation of Internet traffic in relation to server capacity for the server farm of the present invention when hosting multiple customer accounts. 
         FIG. 11  is a block diagram showing a preferred embodiment of the master decision software program of the present invention. 
         FIG. 12  is a graphic representation of three different service level agreement arrangements for a given customer account. 
         FIG. 13  is a graphic representation of Internet traffic in relation to server capacity for a multi-site embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG. 14  is a block diagram showing the master decision software program controlling the network switch and storage unit connections. 
         FIG. 15  is a block diagram of the preferred embodiment of the local decision software program. 
         FIG. 16  is a graphic representation of the workload measurements from the various measurement modules of the local decision software program under varying load conditions. 
         FIG. 17  is a graphic representation of a decision surface generated by the local decision software program to request or remove a server from an administrative group. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     Referring to  FIG. 1 , a simplified functional view of an existing server farm  20  for a hosted service provider is shown. Such server farms are normally constructed using off-the-shelf hardware and software components statically configured to support the hosted service requirements of a given customer account. In this embodiment, the server farm  20  for the hosted server provider is supporting hosted services for four different customer accounts. The server farm  20  is connected to the Internet  22  by network switches/routers  24 . The network switches  24  are in turn connected to internal network switches/routers  26  that form an intranet among the front-end/content servers  28  and back-end/compute servers  30  for a given customer account. All front-end/content servers  28  and back-end/compute servers  30  are connected to disk systems  32  containing data and software unique to that customer account. Depending upon the physical nature of the hardware for the servers  28 ,  30 , the disk systems  32  may be included within the server housing, or the disk systems  32  may be housed in physically separate units directly connected to each of the servers  28 ,  30  or attached to more than one server  28 ,  30  as a storage attached network (SAN) or network attached storage (NAS) configuration. 
     While this arrangement makes good use of off-the-shelf hardware to construct a server farm  20  that can provide hosted services for multiple independent customer accounts, there are several significant issues exposed in this type of an arrangement. The most significant of these is the generally static nature of the allocation and deployment of system resources among different customer accounts. In order to configure and manage a single customer account within this complex, an administrator for the HSP needs to dedicate some fixed level of system resources (e.g., servers, disks, network links) to the particular customer account based on projected requirements of that customer&#39;s needs. 
     For example, assume a relatively simple website has been designed for any given customer account such that under a projected peak load the customer account may require three front-end servers  28  to handle user requests and a quad processor back-end server  30  to handle database queries/updates generated by these requests. For this type of website, it is likely that hardware-based technology such as F5 Big-IP, Cisco Local Director, or Foundry Serverlron, or a software-based solution such as Windows Load Balance Service (WLBS) or equivalent will be used to distribute the user requests evenly across the front-end/content servers  28 . In addition, the back-end database/compute server  30  will commonly be clustered to provide some level of fault tolerance. There are a number of software products available, such as Microsoft Cluster Server, Oracle Parallel Server, etc., that allow websites with multiple servers to ride through hardware failures that might occur during normal operation. In addition, system monitoring tools such as Tivoli Enterprise, HP OpenView, etc. allow administrators to be notified when failures are detected within the server farm  20 . Although these tools can be adequate for managing the hosted services within a single customer account at a given site, none of these tools allow for the management of hosted services across disparate customer accounts. 
     In the context of this example, assume that the website for this customer account is an e-commerce site designed to handle a peak load of 5000 transactions per minute. Further, assume that the websites for the remaining customer accounts in the server farm  20  have been designed to handle peak loads of 10,000, 15,000 and 5000 transactions per minute, respectively. As shown in  FIG. 2 , having to design and configure each customer account to handle an anticipated peak load likely results in significant wasted capacity within the overall server farm  20 . Even though the server farm  20  handling multiple customer accounts may have excess aggregate capacity, this extra capacity cannot be used to respond to hardware failures or unexpected increases in peak load from one account to the next. Resources configured for a particular customer account are dedicated to that account and to that account only. In the event that one of the front-end servers  28  for a first customer account experiences a hardware failure, Web traffic will be routed to the remaining front-end servers  28 . If the customer account was busy before the hardware failure and Web traffic remains constant or increases after the failure, the remaining front-end servers  28  will quickly become overloaded by servicing their previous workload as well as the additional traffic redirected from the failed server. In a best case scenario, the system management software for the server farm  20  would notice that a server had failed and send a message to a site manager (via pager and/or e-mail) indicating the server failure. If the site manager receives the message in a timely manner and is located on site, the site manager can physically remove the failed hardware component, install a spare hardware component that has hopefully been stockpiled for this purpose, recable the new hardware component, configure and install the appropriate software for that customer account, and allow the new hardware component to rejoin the remaining front-end servers  28 . Hopefully, this process could be accomplished in less than an hour. If the message is not received in a timely manner, if the site manager is not located at the site where the server farm is located, or if there is no stockpiled spare hardware available to replace the failed unit, this process will take even longer. In the meantime, response times for users accessing the customer account are degraded and the customer account becomes increasingly vulnerable to another hardware failure during this period. 
     In the event that the customer account experiences an increase in demand above the anticipated peak demand for which that customer account has been configured, there are no resources available to the load balancing facilities for redistributing this increased Web traffic. All of the servers  28 ,  30  would be operating at peak capacity. The result is significantly degraded response times for the customer account and a possibility of “service unavailable” responses for requests that cannot be handled in a timely manner. While the inability to provide services to consumers in a timely manner is an undesirable, but perhaps manageable, problem for a business in other contexts, the additional problem of generating “service unavailable” messages for a website is that, if such messages continue to persist for whatever reason, the Internet may begin to propagate this information to numerous intermediary nodes in the network. As a result, these intermediary nodes will divert subsequent requests to the website due to their understanding that the website is “unavailable”. Not only are the consumers who receive the “service unavailable” message not serviced, but many other consumers may never even get to the website once the customer account becomes saturated or overloaded. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 3 , a server farm  40  for providing dynamic management of hosted services to multiple customer accounts will be described. As with existing server farms  20 , the server farm  40  includes network switches  44  to establish interconnection between the server farm  40  and the Internet  22 . Unlike existing server farm  20 , however, a population of servers  46  are managed under control of an engine group manager  48 . Each of the servers  46  is a stateless computing device that is programatically connected to the Internet via the network switches  44  and to a disk storage system  50 . In one embodiment, the servers  46  are connected to the disk storage system  50  via a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN). Alternatively, the servers  46  may be connected to the disk storage system  50  via a network attached storage (NAS) arrangement, a switchable crossbar arrangement or any similar interconnection technique. 
     As shown in  FIGS. 4 and 5 , the engine group manager  48  is responsible for automatically allocating the stateless servers  46  among multiple customer accounts and then configuring those servers for the allocated account. This is done by allocating the servers for a given customer account to a common administrative group  52  defined for that customer account and configured to access software and data unique to that customer account. As will be described, the engine group manager  48  automatically monitors each administrative group and automatically and dynamically reallocates servers  46 ′ from a first administrative group  52 - a  to a second administrative group  52 - b  in response to the automatic monitoring. This is accomplished by using the engine group manager  48  to set initialization pointers for the reallocated servers  46 ′ from the first administrative group  52 - a  to access software and data unique to the customer account for the second administrative group  52 - b , and then reinitializing the reallocated servers  46 ′ such that reallocated servers  46 ′ join the second administrative group  52 - b . Unlike the existing process for adding are removing hardware resources to a server farm  20 , the present invention can make a reallocated server  46 ′ available to a new administrative group  52  in as little as a few minutes. Basically, the only significant time required to bring the reallocated server  46 ′ online will be the time required to reboot the server  46 ′ and any time required for the load-balancing and/or clustering software to recognize this rebooted server. It will be understood that load-balancing software is more typically found in connection with front-end/content servers, whereas clustering software or a combination of clustering software and load-balancing software are more typically used in connection with back-end/compute servers. The term load-balancing software will be used to refer to any of these possible combinations. 
     In one embodiment, the reallocated servers  46 ′ automatically join the second administrative group because the software for the second administrative group  52 - b  includes load-balancing software that will automatically add or remove a server from that administrative group in response to the server being brought online (i.e. reset and powered on) or brought off-line (i.e., reset and powered off). As previously described, this kind of load-balancing software is widely known and available today; however, existing load-balancing software is only capable of adding or removing servers from a single administrative group. In this embodiment, the engine group manager  48  takes advantage of capabilities of currently available commercial load-balancing application software to allow for the dynamic reallocation servers  46 ′ across different administrative groups  52 . Alternatively, agents or subroutines within the operating system software for the single administrative group could be responsible for integrating a reallocated server  46 ′ into the second administrative group  52 - b  once the reallocated server  46 ′ is brought online. In still another embodiment, the engine group manager  48  could publish updates to a listing of available servers for each administrative group  52 . 
     Preferably, the engine group manager  48  will set pointers in each of the servers  46  for an administrative group  52  to an appropriate copy of the boot image software and configuration files, including operating system an application programs, that had been established for that administrative group  52 . When a reallocated server  46 ′ is rebooted, its pointers have been reset by the engine group manager  48  to point to the boot image software and configuration files for the second administrative group  52 - b , instead of the boot image software and configuration files for the first administrative group  52 - a.    
     In general, each administrative group  52  represents the website or similar hosted services being provided by the server farm  40  for a unique customer account. Although different customer accounts could be paid for by the same business or by a related commercial entity, it will be understood that the data and software associated with a given customer account, and therefore with a given administrative group  52 , will be unique to that customer account. Unlike service providers which utilize large mainframe computer installations to provide hosted services to multiple customers by using a single common operating system to implement timesharing of the resources of the large mainframe computer system, each administrative group  52  consists of unique software, including conventional operating system software, that does not extend outside servers  46  which have been assigned to the administrative group  52 . This distributed approach of the present invention allows for the use of simpler, conventional software applications and operating systems that can be installed on relatively inexpensive, individual servers. In this way, the individual elements that make up an administrative group  52  can be comprised of relatively inexpensive commercially available hardware servers and standard software programs. 
       FIGS. 6 and 7  show a preferred embodiment of the components and hardware for the server farm  40  in accordance with the present invention. Although the preferred embodiment of the present invention is described with respect to this hardware, it will be understood that the concept of the present invention is equally applicable to a server farm implemented using all conventional servers, including the currently available 1U or 2U packaged servers, if those servers are provided with the host management circuitry or its equivalent as will be described. 
     Preferably, the hardware for the server farm  40  is a scalable engine  100  comprised of a large number of commercially available server boards  102  each arranged as an engine blade  132  in a power and space efficient cabinet  110 . The engine blades  132  are removably positioned in a front side  112  of the cabinet  110  in a vertical orientation. A through plane  130  in the middle of the cabinet  110  provides common power and controls peripheral signals to all engine blades  132 . I/O signals for each engine blade  132  are routed through apertures in the through plane  130  to interface cards  134  positioned in the rear of the cabinet  110 . The I/O signals will be routed through an appropriate interface card  134  either to the Internet  22  via the network switch  44 , or to the disk storage  50 . Preferably, separate interface cards  134  are used for these different communication paths. 
     The scalable engine can accommodate different types of server boards  102  in the same cabinet  110  because of a common blade carrier structure  103 . Different types of commercially available motherboards  102  are mounted in the common blade carrier structure  103  that provides a uniform mechanical interface to the cabinet  110 . A specially designed PCI host board  104  that can plug into various types of motherboards  102  has connections routed through the through plane  130  for connecting to the interface cards  134 . Redundant hot-swappable high-efficiency power supplies  144  are connected to the common power signals on the through plane  130 . The host board  104  includes management circuitry that distributes the power signals to the server board  102  for that engine blade  132  by emulating the ATX power management protocol. Replaceable fan trays  140  are mounted below the engine blades  132  to cool the engine  100 . Preferably, the cabinet  110  accommodates multiple rows of engine blades  132  in a chassis assembly  128  that includes a pair of sub-chassis  129  stacked on top of each other and positioned on top of a power frame  146  that holds the power supplies  144 . Preferably, the cabinet  110  will also include rack mounted Ethernet networks switches  44  and  147  and storage switches  149  attached to disk drives  50  over a Fibre Channel network. For a more detailed description of the scalable engine  100  of the preferred embodiment of the present invention, reference is made to the previously-identified, co-pending application entitled “Scalable Internet Engine,” the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. 
     It will also be understood that while the present invention is described with respect to single cabinet  110  housing engine blades  132  with server boards  102  that together with the appropriate application software constitute the various servers  46  that are assigned to a first administrative group  52 - a , and a second administrative group  52 - b  each having at least two engine blades  132 , the server farm  40  can accommodate administrative groups  52  for any number of customers depending upon the total number of servers  46  in the server farm  40 . Preferably, multiple cabinets  110  can be integrated together to scale the total number of servers  46  at a given location. As will be discussed, it is also possible to link multiple cabinets  110  in geographically disparate locations together as part of a single server farm  40  operating under control of the engine group manager  48 . 
     In the preferred embodiment, the server boards  102  of each engine blade  132  can be populated with the most recent processors for Intel, SPARC or PowerPC designs, each of which can support standard operating system environments such as Windows NT, Windows 2000, Linux or Solaris. Each engine blade  132  can accommodate one or more server boards  102 , and each server board may be either a single or multiprocessor design in accordance with the current ATX form factor or a new form factor that may be embraced by the industry in the future. Preferably, the communication channel  106  is implemented a Controller Area Network (CAN) bus that is separate from the communication paths for the network switch  44  or storage switches  149 . Optionally, a second fault backup communication channel  106 ′ could be provided to allow for fault tolerance and redundant communication paths for the group manager software  48 . 
     In a conventional server, the pointers and startup configuration information would be set by manual switches on the server board or hardcoded into PROM chipsets on the server board or stored at fixed locations on a local hard drive accessible by the server board. The management circuitry on the host board  104  is designed to have appropriate hooks into the server board  102  such that the pointers and other startup configuration information are actually supplied by the host management circuitry. Optionally, an engine blade  132  can include a local hard drive  107  that is accessed through the host board  104  such that information stored on that local hard drive  107  can be configured by the host board via the communication channel  106 . Additionally, the host board  104  preferably includes power management circuitry  108  that enables the use of common power supplies for the cabinet  110  by emulating the ATX power management sequence to control the application of power to the server board  102 . Preferably, a back channel Ethernet switch  147  also allows for communication of application and data information among the various server boards  102  within the server farm  40  without the need to route those communications out over the Internet  22 . 
     In a preferred embodiment, each cabinet  110  can house up to  32  engine blades  132 . In this configuration, the networks switches  44  and  147  could comprise two  32  circuit switched Ethernet network routers from Foundry. Preferably, the networks switches  44  and  147  allow a reconfiguration of the connection between a server  46  and the networks switch  44  and  147  to be dynamically adjusted by changing the IP address for the server. With respect to the disk storage units  50 , two options are available. First, unique hardware and software can be inserted in the form of a crossbar switch  149  between the engine blades  132  and the disk storage units  50  which would abstract way the details of the underlying SAN storage hardware configuration. In this case, the link between the disk storage units  50  and each blade  132  would be communicated to the crossbar switch  149  through set of software APIs. Alternatively, commercially available Fibre Channel switches or RAID storage boxes could be used to build connectivity dynamically between the blades  132  and disk storage units  50 . In both alternatives, a layer of software inside the engine group manager  48  performs the necessary configuration adjustments to the connections between the server blades  132  and networks switches  147  and disk storage units  50  are accomplished. In another embodiment, a portion of the servers  46  could be permanently cabled to the network switches or disk storage units to decrease switch costs if, for example, the set of customer accounts supported by a given portion of the server farm  40  will always include a base number of servers  46  that cannot be reallocated. In this case, the base number of servers  46  for each administrative group  52  could be permanently cabled to the associated network switch  149  and disk storage unit  50  for that administrative group  52 . 
     Referring again to  FIGS. 4 and 5 , it will be seen that the server farm system  40  of the present invention can dynamically manage hosted services provided to multiple customer accounts. It will be seen that there are at least five servers  46  operably connected to an intranet  54 . Preferably, the intranet is formed over the same network switches  44  that interconnect the servers  46  with the Internet  22  or over similar network switches such as network switches  147  that interconnect the servers  46  to each other. Each server  46  has management circuitry on the host board  104  that provides a communication channel  106  with at least one of the other servers  46  that is separate from the intranet  54  created by the network switches  44  and/or  147 . 
     At least four of the servers  46  are configured to execute a local decision software program  70  that monitors the server  46  and communicate status information across the communication channel  106 . At least two of these servers  46  are allocated to a first administrative group  52 - a  for a first customer account and configured to access software and data unique to the first customer account to provide hosted services to the Internet for that customer account. At least another two of the servers  46  are allocated to a second administrative group  52 - b  for a second customer account and configured to access software and data unique to the second customer account to provide hosted services to the Internet for that customer account. At least one of the servers  46  executes a master decision software program  72  that collects status information from the local decision software programs  70  executing on the other servers  46 . In one embodiment, a pair of servers  46  are slaved together using fault tolerant coordination software to form a fault tolerant/redundant processing platform for the master decision software program. As will be described, the master decision software program  72  dynamically reallocates at least one server  46 ′ from the first administrative group  52 - a  to the second administrative group  52 - b  in response to at least the status information collected from the local decision software programs  70 . 
     The servers  46  for both administrative groups  52  can be arranged in any configuration specified for a given customer account. As shown in  FIG. 3 , three of the servers  46  for administrative group  52 - b  are configured as front-end servers with a single server  46  being configured as the back-end/compute server for this customer account. In response to a significant increase in the peak usage activity for the customer account for the second administrative group  52 - b , the master decision software program  72  determines that is necessary to reallocate server  46 ′ from its current usage as a server for the first administrative group  52 - a  to being used as a back-end/compute server for the second administrative group  52 - b . The preferred embodiment for how this decision is arrived will be described in connection with the description of the operation of the local decision software program  72 . Following the procedure just described, the master decision software program  72  directs the dynamic reallocation of reallocated server  46 ′ to the second administrative group  52 - b  as shown in  FIG. 4 . 
     Although the preferred embodiment of present invention is described in terms of reallocation of a server  46 ′ from a first administrative group  52 - a  to a second administrative group  52 - b , it should be understood that the present invention can also be implemented to provide for a common pool of available servers  46 ′ that are not currently assigned to a given administrative group  52  and may be reallocated without necessarily requiring that they be withdrawn from a working administrative group  52 . For example, a server farm  40  having thirty-two servers  46  could be set up to allocate six servers to each of four different customer accounts, with one server  46  executing the master decision software program  72  and a remaining pool  56  of seven servers  46  that are initially unassigned and can be allocated to any of the four administrative groups  52  defined for that server farm. Because the assignment of servers to administrative groups is dynamic during the ongoing operation of the server farm  40  in accordance with the present invention, the preferred embodiment of the present invention uses this pool  56  as a buffer to further reduce the time required to bring a reallocated server  46 ′ into an administrative group  52  by eliminating the need to first remove the reallocated server  46 ′ from its existing administrative group  52 . In one embodiment, the pool  56  can have both warm servers and cold servers. A warm server would be a server  46  that has already been configured for a particular administrative group  52  and therefore it is not necessary to reboot that warm server to allow it to join the administrative group. A cold server would be a server that is not configured to a particular administrative group  52  and therefore it will be necessary to reboot that cold server in order for it to join the administrative group. 
     It should also be understood that reallocated servers  46 ′ can be allocated to a new administrative group singly or as a group with more than one reallocated server  46 ′ being simultaneously reallocated from a first administrative group  52 - a  to a second administrative group  52 - b . In the context of how the network switches  44 ,  147  and storage switches  149  are configured to accommodate such dynamic reallocation, it should also be understood that multiple servers  46  may be reallocated together as a group if it is necessary or desirable to reduce the number of dynamically configurable ports on the network  44 ,  147  and/or storage switches  149 . 
     One of the significant advantages of the present invention is that the process of reconfiguring servers from one administrative group  52 - a  to a second administrative group  52 - b  will wipe clean all of the state associated with a particular customer account for the first administrative group from the reallocated server  46 ′ before that server is brought into service as part of the second administrative group  52 - b . This provides a natural and very efficient security mechanism for precluding intentional or unintentional access to data between different customer accounts. Unless a server  46  or  46 ′ is a member of a given administrative group  52 - a , there is no way for that server to have access to the data or information for a different administrative group  52 - b . Instead of the complex and potentially problematic software security features that must be implemented in a mainframe server or other larger server system that utilizes a shard memory space and/or common operating system to provide hosted services across different customer accounts, the present invention keeps the advantages of the simple physical separation between customer accounts that is found in conventional server farm arrangements, but does this while still allowing hardware to be automatically and dynamically reconfigured in the event of a need or opportunity to make better usage of that hardware. The only point of access for authorization and control of this reconfiguration is via the master decision software program  72  over the out-of-band communication channel  106 . 
     As shown in  FIG. 14 , preferably each server  46  is programmatically connected to the Internet  22  under control of the master decision software program  72 . The master decision software program  72  also switches the reallocated server  46 ′ to be operably connected to a portion of the disk storage unit storing software and data unique to the customer account of the second administrative group. The use of an out-of-band communication channel  106  separate from the intranet  54  over the network switches  44  for communicating at least a portion of the status information utilized by the master decision software program  72  is preferably done for reasons of security, fault isolation and bandwidth isolation. In a preferred embodiment, the communication channel  106  is a serial Controller Area Network (CAN) bus operating at a bandwidth of 1 Mb/s within the cabinet  106 , with a secondary backbone also operating at a bandwidth 1 Mb/s between different cabinets  106 . It will be understood that a separate intranet with communications using Internet Protocol (IP) protocol could be used for the communication channel  106  instead of a serial management interface such as the CAN bus, although such an embodiment would effectively be over designed for the level and complexity of communications that are required of the communication channel  106  connected to the host boards  104 . While it would be possible to implement the communication channel  106  as part of the intranet  54 , such an implementation is not preferred because of reasons of security, fault isolation and bandwidth isolation. 
       FIG. 8  shows a block diagram of the hierarchical relation of one embodiment of the various data and software layers utilized by the present invention for a given customer account. Customer data and databases  60  form the base layer of this hierarchy. Optionally, a web data management software layer  62  may be incorporated to manage the customer data  60  across multiple instances of storage units that comprise the storage system  50 . Cluster and/or load-balancing aware application software  64  comprises the top layer of what is conventionally thought of as the software and data for the customer&#39;s website. Load-balancing software  66  groups multiple servers  46  together as part of the common administrative group  52 . Multiple instances of conventional operating system software  68  are present, one for each server  46 . Alternatively, the load-balancing software  66  and operating system software  68  may be integrated as part of a common software package within a single administrative group  52 . For a more detailed description of one embodiment of a load balancing system that may be utilized, reference is made to the previously-identified, co-pending application entitled “System for Distributing Requests Across Multiple Servers Using Dynamic Metrics,” the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. Above the conventional operating system software  68  is the engine operating software  48  of the present invention that manages resources across multiple customer accounts  52 - a  and  52 - b.    
     In one embodiment of the present invention as shown in  FIG. 9  the servers  46  assigned to the first administrative group  52 - a  are located at a first site  80  and the servers  46  assigned to the second administrative group  52 - b  are located at a second site  82  geographically remote from the first site  80 . In this embodiment, the system further includes an arrangement for automatically replicating at least data for the first administrative group  52 - a  to the second site  82 . In a preferred embodiment, a communication channel  84  separate from the network switches  44  is used to replicate data from the disk storage units  50 - a  at the first site  80  to the disk storage units  50 - b  at the second site  82 . The purpose of this arrangement is twofold. First, replication of the data provides redundancy and backup protection that allows for disaster recovery in the event of a disaster at the first site  80 . Second, replication of the data at the second site  82  allows the present invention to include the servers  46  located in the second site  82  in the pool of available servers which the master decision software program  72  may use to satisfy increased demand for the hosted services of the first customer by dynamically reallocating these servers to the first administrative group  52 - a.    
     The coordination between master decision software programs  72  at the first site  80  and second site  82  is preferably accomplished by the use of a global decision software routine  86  that communicates with the master decision software program  72  at each site. This modular arrangement allows the master decision software programs  72  to focus on managing the server resources at a given site and extends the concept of having each site  80 ,  82  request additional off-site services from the global decision software routine  86  or offer to make available off-site services in much the same way that the local decision software programs  70  make requests for additional servers or make servers available for reallocation to the master decision software program  70  at a given site. 
     Preferably, the multi-site embodiment of the present invention utilizes commercially available SAN or NAS storage networking software to implement a two-tiered data redundancy and replication hierarchy. As shown in  FIG. 9 , the working version  74  of the customer data for the first customer account customer is maintained on the disk storage unit  50  at the first site  80 . Redundancy data protection, such as data mirroring, data shadowing or RAID data protection is used to establish a backup version  76  of the customer data for the first customer account at the first site  80 . The networking software utilizes the communication channel  84  to generate a second backup version  78  of the customer data for the first customer account located at the second site  82 . The use of a communication channel  84  that is separate from the connection of the networks switches  44  to the Internet  22  preferably allows for redundant communication paths and minimizes the impact of the background communication activity necessary to generate the second backup version  78 . Alternatively, the backup version  78  of the customer data for the first customer account located at the second site  82  could be routed through the network switches  44  and the Internet  22 . In another embodiment, additional backup versions of the customer data could be replicated at additional site locations to further expand the capability of the system to dynamically reallocate servers from customer accounts that are underutilizing these resources to customer accounts in need of these resources. 
     As shown in  FIG. 10 , the ability of the present invention to dynamically reallocate servers from customer accounts that are underutilizing these resources to customer accounts in need of these resources allows for the resources of the server farm  40  to be used more efficiently in providing hosted services to multiple customer accounts. For each of the customer accounts  91 ,  92 ,  93 ,  94  and  95 , the overall allocation of servers  46  to each customer account is accomplished such that a relatively constant marginal overcapacity bandwidth is maintained for each customer account. Unlike existing server farms, where changes in hardware resources allocated to a given customer account happen in terms of hours, days or weeks, the present invention allows for up-to-the-minute changes in server resources that are dynamically allocated on an as needed basis.  FIG. 10  also shows the advantages of utilizing multiple geographically distinct sites for locating portions of the server farm  40 . It can be seen that the peak usages for customer accounts  94  and  95  are time shifted from those of the other customer accounts  91 ,  92  and  93  due to the difference in time zones between site location  80  and site location  82 . The present invention can take advantage of these time shifted differences in peak usages to allocate rolling server capacity to site locations during a time period of peak usage from other site locations which are experiencing a lull in activity. 
     In one embodiment of the multi-site configuration of the present invention as shown in  FIG. 13 , at least three separate three separate site locations  80 ,  82  and  84  are preferably situated geographically at least 24 divided by N+1 hours apart from each other, where N represents the number of distinct site locations in the multi-site configuration. In the embodiment having three separate site locations  80 ,  82  and  84 , the site locations are preferably eight hours apart from each other. The time difference realized by this geographic separation allows for the usage patterns of customer accounts located at all three sites to be aggregated and serviced by a combined number of servers that is significantly less than would otherwise be required if each of the servers at a given location were not able to utilize servers dynamically reallocated from one or more of the other locations. The advantage of this can be seen when site location  80  is experiencing nighttime usage levels, servers from this site location  80  can be dynamically reallocated to site location  82  that is experiencing daytime usage levels. At the same time, site location  84  experiences evening usage levels and may or may not be suited to have servers reallocated from this location to another location or vice versa. Generally, a site location is arranged so as to look to borrow capacity first from a site location that is at a later time zone (i.e., to the east of that site) and will look to make extra capacity available to site locations that are at an earlier time zone (i.e., to the west of that site). Other preferences can also be established depending upon past usage and predicted patterns of use. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 11 , a preferred embodiment of the master decision software program  72  will be described. The master decision software program  72  includes a resource database  150 , a service level agreement database  152 , a master decision logic module  154  and a dispatch module  156 . The master decision logic module  154  has access to the resource database  150  and the service level agreement database  152  and compares the status information to information in the resource database  150  and the service level agreement database  152  to determine whether to dynamically reallocate servers from the first customer account to the second customer account. The dispatch module  156  is operably linked to the master decision logic module  154  to dynamically reallocate servers when directed by the master decision logic module  154  by using the communication channel  106  to set initialization pointers for the reallocated servers  46 ′ to access software and data unique to the customer account for the second administrative group  52 - b  and reinitializing the reallocated server  46 ′ such that at least one server joins the second administrative group  52 - b . Preferably, the dispatch module  156  includes a set of connectivity rules  160  and a set of personality modules  162  for each server  46 . The connectivity rules  160  providing instructions for connecting a particular server  46  to a given network switch  44  or data storage unit  50 . The personality module  162  describes the details of the particular software configuration of the server board  102  to be added to an administrative work group for a customer account. Once the dispatch module  146  has determined the need to reallocate a server, it will evaluate the set of connectivity rules  160  and a set of personality modules  162  to determine how to construct a server  46  that will be dispatched to that particular administrative group  52 . 
     Another way of looking at how the present invention can dynamically provide hosted service across disparate accounts is to view a portion of the servers  46  as being assigned to a pool of a plurality of virtual servers that may be selectively configured to access software and data for a particular administrative group  52 . When the dispatch module  146  has determined a need to add a server  46  to a particular administrative group  52 , it automatically allocates one of the servers from the pool of virtual servers to that administrative group. Conversely, if the dispatch module determines that an administrative group can relinquish one of its servers  46 , that relinquished server would be added to the pool of virtual servers that are available for reallocation to a different administrative group. When the present invention is viewed from this perspective, it will be seen that the group manager software  48  operates to “manufacture” or create one or more virtual servers out of this pool of the plurality of virtual servers on a just-in-time or as-needed basis. As previously described, the pool of virtual servers can either be a warm pool or a cold pool, or any combination thereof. The virtual server is manufactured or constructed to be utilized by the desired administrative group in accordance with the set of connectivity rules  160  and personality modules  162 . 
     In this embodiment, the master decision logic module  152  is operably connected to a management console  158  that can display information about the master decision software program and accept account maintenance and update information to processes into the various databases. A billing software module  160  is integrated into the engine group manager  48  in order to keep track of the billing based on the allocation of servers to a given customer account. Preferably, a customer account is billed a higher rate at a higher rate for the hosted services when servers are dynamically reallocated to that customer account based on the customer&#39;s service level agreement. 
       FIG. 12  shows a representation of three different service level agreement arrangements for a given customer account. In this embodiment, the service level agreements are made for providing hosted services for a given period of time, such as a month. In a first level shown at  170 , the customer account is provided with the capacity to support hosted services for 640,000 simultaneous connections. If the customer account did not need a reallocation of servers to support capacity greater than the committed capacity for the first level  170 , the customer would be charged to establish rate for that level of committed capacity. In a second level shown at  172 , customer account can be dynamically expanded to support capacity of double the capacity at the first level  172 . In a preferred embodiment, once the engine group manager  48  has dynamically reallocated servers to the customer account in order to support the second level  172  of capacity to meet a higher than anticipated peak usage, the customer account would be charged a higher rate for the period of time that the additional usage was required. In addition, the customer account could be charged a one-time fee for initiating the higher level of service represented by the second level  172 . In one embodiment, charges for the second level  172  of service would be incurred at a rate that is some additional multiple of the rate charged for the first level  170 . The second level  172  represents a guaranteed expansion level available to the customer for the given period of time. Finally, a third level  174  provides an optional extended additional level of service that may be able to be brought to bare to provide hosted services for the customer account. In this embodiment, the third level  174  provides up to a higher multiple times the level of service as the first level  170 . In one embodiment in order to provide this extended additional level of service, the host system makes use of the multi-site arrangement as previously described in order to bring in the required number of servers to meet this level of service. Preferably, the customer account is charged a second higher rate for the period of time that the extended additional service is reallocated to this customer account. In one embodiment, charges for the third level  174  of service would be incurred at a rate that is an even larger multiple of the first level  170  for the given period of time that the extended additional third level  174  of service is provided for this customer account. Again, the customer account may be charged a one-time fee for initiating this third level  174  of service at any time during the given period. At the end of a given period, the customer may alter the level of service contracted for the given customer account. 
     As shown in  FIG. 12 , the service level agreement is increased by 50 percent from a first period to a second period in response to a higher anticipated peak usage for the given customer account. Preferably, the period for a service level agreement for a given customer account would be a monthly basis, with suggestions been presented to the customer for recommended changes to the service level agreement for the upcoming billing period. Although this example is demonstrated in terms of simultaneous connections, it should be understood that the service level agreement for given customer account can be generated in terms of a variety of performance measurements, such as simultaneous connections, hits, amount of data transferred, number of transactions, connect time, resources utilized by different application software programs, the revenue generated, or any combination thereof. It will also be understood that the service level agreement may provide for different levels of commitment for different types of resources, such as front-end servers, back-end servers, network connections or disk storage units. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 15 , a block diagram of the preferred embodiment of the local decision software program  70  will be described. A series of measurement modules  180 ,  181 ,  182 ,  183  and  184  each performed independent evaluations of the operation of the particular server on which the local decision software program  70  is executing. Outputs from these measurement modules are provided to an aggregator module  190  of the local decision software program  70 . A predictor module  192  generates expected response times and probabilities for various requests. With priority inputs  194  supplied by the master decision software program  72  from the service level agreement database  152 , a fuzzy inference system  196  determines whether a request to add an engine blade  104  for the administrative group  52  will be made, or whether an offer to give up or remove an engine blade from the administrative group  52  will be made. The request to add or remove a blade is then communicated over communication channel  106  to the master decision software program  72 . In one embodiment, the aggregator module  190  is executed on each server  46  within a given administrative group  52 , and the predictor module  192  and fuzzy inference module  196  are executed on only a single server  46  within the given administrative group  52  with the outputs of the various measurement modules  180 - 184  been communicated to the designated server  46  across the communication channel  106 . In another embodiment, the aggregator module  190 , predictor module  192  and fuzzy inference module  196  may be executed on more than one server within a given administrative group for purposes of redundancy or distributed processing of the information necessary to generate the request add or remove a blade. 
     Preferably, the aggregator module  190  accomplishes a balancing across the various measurement modules  180 - 184  in accordance with the formula:
 
 B   k =[(Σ T   ki   /w   k )−min k ]*100/(max k −min k )−50
 
i=1 to w k  
 
     Where T k2  is the time take it for the ith request of measurement type k, w k  is the window size for measurement type k, min k  is the minimum time expected for measurement type k, and max k  is the maximum time to be tolerated for a measurement type k. The balanced request rate B k  is then passed to the predictor module  192  and the fuzzy inference module  196  of the local decision software program  70 . The window size for the measurement type k would be set to minimize any unnecessary intrusion by the measurement modules  180 - 184 , while at the same time allowing for a timely and adequate response to increases in usage demand for the administrative group  52 . 
       FIG. 16  shows a sample of the workload measurements from the various measurement modules  180 - 184  under varying load conditions. It can be seen that no single workload measurements provides a constantly predictable estimate of the expected response time and probability for that response time. As such, the fuzzy inference module  196  must consider three fundamental parameters: the predicted response times for various requests, the priority these requests, and probability of their occurrence. The fuzzy inference module  196  blends all three of these considerations to make a determination as to whether to request a blade to be added or remove from the administrative group  52 . An example of a fuzzy inference rule would be:
         if (priority is urgent) and (probability is abundant) and (expected response time is too high) then (make request for additional blade).       

     Preferably, the end results of the fuzzy inference module  196  is to generate a decision surface contouring the need to request an additional server over the grid of the expected response time vs. the probability of that response time for this administrative group  52 . An example of such a decision surface is shown in  FIG. 17 . 
     A portion of the disclosure of this invention is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner permits the facsimile reproduction of the disclosure of this invention as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights. 
     Although the preferred embodiment of the automated system of the present invention has been described, it will be recognized that numerous changes and variations can be made and that the scope of the present invention is to be defined by the claims.