Method and system for dynamic web services utilization

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9710830-B1
Application number	US-201213602170-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 2, 2012
Priority date	Jun 21, 2005
Publication date	Jul 18, 2017
Grant date	Jul 18, 2017

Abstract

A method and system for dynamic pricing of web services utilization. According to one embodiment, a method may include dynamically predicting utilization of a web services computing resource that is expected to occur during a given interval of time, and dependent upon the dynamically predicted utilization, setting a price associated with utilization of the web services computing resource occurring during the given interval of time. The method may further include providing the price to a customer.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
provisioning a plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources implemented on one or more underlying physical computing devices within a provider network of a service provider;
measuring varying utilization of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources operated by the service provider; and
dynamically controlling external access to the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources for one or more resource user devices, said dynamically controlling external access comprising:
receiving, from one or more resource user devices via a network external to the provider network for one or more external resource users, a plurality of requests to use at least a portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources;
for each of the plurality of requests, determining, based at least in part on the measured varying utilization, whether one or more constraints specified for the request are satisfied;
for requests where the respective one or more constraints are determined to not be satisfied, keeping the respective request dormant;
for requests where the respective one or more constraints are determined to be satisfied:
making the respective requested portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources available for use on a network to the respective external resource user according to the received request; and
processing one or more tasks for the respective external resource user using the portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources made available as long as the respective one or more constraints continue to be satisfied; and

determining, based at least in part on the measured varying utilization of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources, that respective one or more constraints specified for one of the plurality of requests being kept dormant, are satisfied, and in response:
making a respective requested portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources available for use on a network to a corresponding external resource user for the dormant request; and
processing one or more respective tasks for the corresponding external resource user using the respective portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources made available as long as the respective one or more constraints continue to be satisfied.

2. The method as recited claim 1 ,
wherein the plurality of requests specify a threshold price;
wherein the one or more constraints include a current price associated with utilization of the machine-based virtual computing resource; and
wherein individual ones of the plurality of requests are not processed during time when the respective threshold price does not satisfy the current price.

3. The method as recited in claim 2 , further comprising: determining that the threshold price no longer meets the current price; and in response to said determining that the threshold price no longer meets the current price, terminating availability of the respective portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources.

4. The method as recited in claim 2 , wherein the current price is a dynamically varying current price associated with the utilization of the portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources according to the varying utilization of the portion of the computing resource;
the method further comprising:
changing the dynamically varying current price associated with utilization of the computing resource; and
subsequent to changing the dynamically varying current price, determining whether the threshold price meets the dynamically varying current price.

5. The method as recited in claim 2 , further comprising:
dependent on the current price, maintaining a different request to utilize the computing resource in a dormant state that does not utilize the respective requested portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources.

6. The method as recited in claim 5 , wherein maintaining the different request in the dormant state is based upon determining that a different threshold price specified by the different request does not meet the current price.

7. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the underlying physical computing devices are one or more enterprise-side computers of an enterprise.

8. The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources comprise one or more of a data storage resource, a processing resource, or a network communication resource.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising presenting the available portion of the plurality of computing resource to the respective resource user via a web services interface.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores program instructions, wherein the program instructions are executed by one or more processors to:
provision a plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources implemented on one or more underlying physical computing devices within a provider network of a service provider;
measure varying utilization of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources operated by the service provider; and
dynamically control external access to the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources, wherein said dynamically control access comprises:
receive, from an external resource user device via a network external to the provider network for one or more external resource users, a request to utilize at least a portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources;
based on a determination that one or more constraints specified for the request are not satisfied, keep the received request dormant, wherein the determination is based at least in part on the measured varying utilization of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources;
subsequent to the determination that the one or more constraints specified for the request are not satisfied, determine that the one or more constraints specified for the request are satisfied; and
in response to the determination that the one or more constraints specified for the request are satisfied:
make the portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resource available for use on a network to the external resource user such that the received request is no longer dormant; and

process one or more tasks for the respective external resource user using the available portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources as long as the one or more constraints continue to be satisfied.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as recited in claim 10 ,
wherein the request specifies a threshold price for performing the request, wherein the one or more constraints include a current price associated with utilization of the computing resource; and
wherein the program instructions are further executed to determine whether a threshold parameter other than price for performing the request satisfies a current parameter other than the current price that is associated with utilization of the portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resources, and
wherein said make the portion of the plurality of machine-based virtual computing resource available for use on a network is also in response to a determination that the threshold parameter satisfies the current parameter.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as recited in claim 11 , wherein the current parameter other than the price includes one or more of an amount of utilization of the p

Assignees

• Vermeulen Allan H
• Bezos Jeffrey P
• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Vermeulen Allan H
• Bezos Jeffrey P

Classifications

• H04L67/32

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G06Q10/0631

  Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations · CPC title

• G06Q30/0283 Primary

  Price estimation or determination · CPC title

• G06F9/5077

  Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources (specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455) · CPC title

• H04L67/60

  Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources (admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70) · CPC title