Patent ID: 8612596

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a program executable in a computing device, the program comprising: code that obtains usage statistics for a plurality of virtual machine instances executing in a networked plurality of computing devices over a time period, each of the virtual machine instances being associated with a customer, each customer being capable of terminating associated ones of the virtual machine instances and launching new associated ones of the virtual machine instances; code that groups the usage statistics according to a computing device type, a virtual machine instance type, an operating system type, and a customer usage classification, thereby producing a plurality of usage groups; code that that generates a corresponding demand forecast for each of the usage groups; code that calculates a projected demand for at least one physical component of the networked plurality of computing devices according to the demand forecasts; and code that submits an order to a resource vendor for a quantity of the at least one physical component, the quantity being determined based at least in part on the projected demand and a lead time.