Patent Document ID: 7509406
Application ID: 10955688

Base Claim:
1. A method for managing terminal services (TS) accounts for online utilization of a hosted application, the method comprising: monitoring at least one of a supply of available TS accounts, a demand for TS accounts, and a status of each TS account; creating one or more TS accounts in response to detecting that the supply of available TS accounts is below a buffer level, wherein the buffer level comprises a minimum number of TS accounts having an available status, the number of TS accounts having an available status comprising at least one TS account; and provisioning a TS account for use in accessing a TS session that provides online use of the hosted application, wherein provisioning the TS account comprises: receiving a request to access to the hosted application; querying the supply of available TS accounts for TS accounts associated with a language that matches a language of the request; converting a status of one of the TS accounts associated with the language from a status of available to a status of in use; identifying an IP address to which the TS account having the status converted will be provisioned; providing and storing credentials on behalf of a user making the request; associating the credentials with a unique profile for the user; sending the credentials to the IP address; and identifying and storing a time when the credentials are sent to the IP address wherein each provisioned TS account is associated with a unique profile, and wherein users have their own profiles instantly created without the users needing to sign up for a TS account and without waiting for authentication; wherein the supply of available TS accounts is replenished whenever the supply of available TS accounts is below the buffer level to ensure that TS accounts are available for a plurality of users utilizing the hosted application via online TS sessions.

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Claim 4:
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving and storing at least one of account control parameters, time parameters, and account information parameters for managing the TS accounts wherein the control parameters include at least one of the following: a language associated with each TS account created; the buffer level; and a bulk-create value comprising a number of TS accounts to be created when the supply of available TS accounts is below the buffer level; wherein the time parameters include at least one of the following: a first polling frequency comprising a time value between periodic queries of TS accounts for creating accounts; a second polling frequency comprising a time value between periodic queries of TS accounts for purging accounts; a TS account duration comprising a time span between provisioning a TS account and deletion of the TS account; a warning time comprising a time span between provisioning a TS account and rendering a warning to a user during a TS session; and a TS session duration comprising a time limit at which a TS session is disconnected; and wherein the account information parameters include at least one of the following: a status associated with each TS account created comprising one of available, in use, wherein in use status indicates the TS account has been provisioned, and cleanup, wherein cleanup status indicates the account is tagged for deletion; a username produced and associated with a provisioned TS account in response to the demand for a TS account; a “delete-retry” field associated with the TS account and used to track the number of deletion attempts made on the TS account; and a password generated, encrypted, and associated with the provisioned TS account in response to the demand for a TS account.