Patent ID: 7782792

Claim:
A non-transitory memory tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus of a computer to perform operations for determining a status of service providers providing services in a distributed system, the operations comprising: collecting feedback from service consumers comprising attributes indicating positive and negative feedback concerning at least an availability of services requested from the service providers by the service consumers over the distributed system; analyzing the feedback collected from the service consumers; and determining a status of service providers providing services in the distributed system in dependence on the analysis of the collected feedback, wherein a classification model is used to classify the status of the service providers providing services in the distributed system, wherein in order to reduce feedback error the classification model applies an adaptive sequential decision rule based on a likelihood ratio L=P 0 /P 1 , wherein P is a probability, wherein P=P(C|S=0) is a probability of a current classification result of a service provider given that a true status of a service provider is 0 (available), wherein P 1 =P(C|S=1)) is a probability of a current classification result given that a true status of a service provider is 1 (unavailable), wherein C is a classifier that maps a vector of observed attributes, and wherein S is an availability status.