Patent ID: 8880704

Claim:
An infrastructure provider method comprising: providing, by the infrastructure provider, a plurality of servers for a plurality of platform providers and platform customers, wherein: each of the platform providers provides platform service modules, at one or more of the servers, for one or more platform customers; and each of the platform customers is associated with platform customer data stored at one or more of the servers and supported by platform service modules of a platform provider selected by each platform customer; receiving, by the infrastructure provider, a hardware identification request, wherein the hardware identification request comprises a request to identify servers storing an identified platform customer's data; providing, by the infrastructure provider, in response to the hardware identification request, requested hardware identifiers identifying the servers storing the identified platform customer's data; receiving, by the infrastructure provider, a migration in place request, the migration in place request comprising a request to switch the identified platform customer's data from a first platform provider to a second platform provider while the identified platform customer's data remains at the same servers storing the identified platform customer's data as identified in response to the hardware identification request; and deploying, by the infrastructure provider, in response to the migration in place request, platform service modules of the second platform provider to the same servers storing the identified platform customer's data as identified in response to the hardware identification request; wherein the platform service modules of the second platform provider are adapted to migrate the identified platform customer's data from platform service modules of the first platform provider to the platform service modules of the second platform provider while the identified platform customer's data remains at the same servers storing the identified platform customer's data as identified in response to the hardware identification request.