Patent ID: 8433769

Claim:
A system for providing access to a plurality of services from service providers to users at remote locations, comprising: a plurality of resource managers, each disposed at a given one of the remote locations, each of the resource managers including a processing platform running an operating system for interfacing with a user through one or more physical resources to provide access to a user selected one of the services; each of the resource managers further comprising a data store including configuration information, the configuration information identifying external services available to a user from the resource manager, wherein there are multiple configurations stored in the data store, each associated with one of a plurality of predetermined external services, the configuration information for each external service identifying one or more of the available physical system resources required to access the predetermined external service, the data store further comprising a series of instructions to initiate a user identity session whereby the user interfaces with the resource manager with one or more of the physical system resources to open the user identity session wherein the user can access multiple ones of the external services within a single identity session; a central processing center for communicating with each of the plurality of resource managers and with each of the plurality of services providers and operating in conjunction with the resource managers to execute a predetermined sequence of actions for accessing a desired one of the services from the service providers providing such service; wherein some of the plurality of resource managers requesting a desired one of the services, the resource managers requesting a desired one of the services and managing the one or more physical resources required for execution of a portion of the predetermined sequence of actions required for the requested service to interface with a user; and the central processing center executing the remaining portion of the predetermined sequence of actions required for the requested service to interface with a user.