Patent Issued for Automated platform provisioning system (USPTO 11936745): Hartford Fire Insurance Company

2024 APR 09 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Nigro, Joseph Nicholas (Belchertown, MA, US), filed on September 22, 2022, was published online on March 19, 2024, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11936745 is assigned to Hartford Fire Insurance Company (Hartford, Connecticut, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “In some cases, an enterprise might want provide a computer platform to let employees, customers, etc. access various services. For example, a computer platform might include a web component, an application component, a database component, etc. that provide access to business information and/or allow for business information to be updated. Typically, an Information Technology (“IT”) employee of the enterprise will determine the various components required to support a new computer platform. The IT employee might then request that sufficient hardware resources be provided to support these components. Note that this request might actually comprise several individual requests (e.g., one for a web server, another one for an application server, etc.), each of which might need individual approvals, review, etc. Moreover, the IT employee (or another user) might then need to configure the various components and/or hardware resources to ensure that the elements work together properly to create the desired platform. Such an approach, however, can be a time-consuming, expensive, and error-prone task-especially when a substantial number of potential platforms (of varying types and/or different functionality) need to be supported.

“In addition, some hardware resources might be dedicated to computer platform that is rarely, if ever, used. For example, a designer might create a test version of a computer platform and arrange to have sufficient hardware resources dedicated to support the test platform. After he or she has finished testing the platform, however, there might not be a need to continue to use that particular platform. The enterprise might be reluctant to re-use the hardware resources for other purposes (e.g., because the test platform might need to be re-created at a later time, which can be a difficult task when various configuration parameters can only be found in supporting documentation, such as word processing files). As a result, an enterprise might find that a substantial amount of hardware resources are rarely, if ever, used.

“It would be desirable to provide systems and methods to accurately and efficiently facilitate automated platform provisioning for an enterprise, while allowing for flexibility and effectiveness when creating, reviewing, and/or re-creating platforms as appropriate.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “According to some embodiments, systems, methods, apparatus, computer program code and means are provided to automate platform provisioning for an enterprise. In some embodiments, a platform resource computer store contains a set of electronic data records (each including a component identifier and a set of computing characteristic values). A profile engine may receive a platform request from a user associated with the enterprise and identify, based on data in the platform resource computer store, a resource bundle of components appropriate in view of the platform request. A platform generator may receive platform requirements based on the identified resource bundle of components and provide input data to a REST API service. Final platform definition information for the enterprise may be stored into a central repository. According to some embodiments, a platform provisioning system may process IaaS and PaaS automation components and utilize a return service to generate infrastructure binding data to couple components in the resource bundle to each other.

“Some embodiments comprise: means for receiving, at a profile engine computer, a platform request from a user associated with the enterprise; means for identifying, based on electronic data records in a platform resource computer store, a resource bundle of components appropriate in view of the platform request; means for outputting platform requirements based at least in part on the identified resource bundle of components; means for receiving, by a platform generator system computer, the platform requirements from the profile engine computer; means for providing input data to an asynchronous representational state transfer application programming interface service; means for storing final platform definition information for the enterprise into a central repository; means for processing, by a platform provisioning system computer, Infrastructure-as-a-Service automation components; means for processing, by the platform provisioning system computer, Platform-as-a-Service automation components; and means for utilizing a return service to generate infrastructure binding data to couple components in the resource bundle to each other.

“In some embodiments, a communication device associated with a back-end application computer server exchanges information with remote devices. The information may be exchanged, for example, via public and/or proprietary communication networks.

“Some technical effects of some embodiments of the invention are improved and computerized ways to accurately and efficiently facilitate automated platform provisioning for an enterprise. With these and other advantages and features that will become hereinafter apparent, a more complete understanding of the nature of the invention can be obtained by referring to the following detailed description and to the drawings appended hereto.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system to automate platform provisioning for an enterprise, comprising: (a) a platform resource computer store containing a set of electronic data records, each electronic data record including a component identifier and a set of computing characteristic values; (b) a profile engine computer, coupled to the platform resource computer store, programmed to: (i) receive a platform request from a user associated with the enterprise, wherein the platform request is associated with a base service level, a multiplier, and at least one service offering extension, (ii) identify, based on the electronic data records in the platform resource computer store, a resource bundle of components appropriate in view of the platform request, wherein the resource bundle of components includes a network component and at least one of: (i) middleware services and (ii) a network balancer, and (iii) output platform requirements based at least in part on the identified resource bundle of components; © a platform generator system computer, coupled to the profile engine computer, programmed to: (i) receive the platform requirements from the profile engine computer, (ii) provide input data to an asynchronous representational state transfer application programming interface service, and (iii) store final platform definition information for the enterprise into a central repository; (d) a platform provisioning system computer, coupled to the platform generator system computer, programmed to: (i) process Infrastructure-as-a-Service automation components, (ii) process Platform-as-a-Service automation components, (iii) utilize a return service to generate infrastructure binding data to couple components in the resource bundle to each other; (e) the central repository to store the final platform definition information in response to the platform request received from the user; and (f) an automated build platform de-creation computer, programmed to: (i) receive a platform de-creation request from the user associated with the enterprise, the platform de-creation request indicating that components of a currently deployed platform are no longer needed by the enterprise, and (ii) responsive to the received platform de-creation request, arrange for computing resources associated with the platform to be released, wherein the central repository is further to provide feedback data to the profile engine computer, the feedback data being used by the profile engine computer to improve responses to future platform requests from users, the feedback data including: (i) a component change, (ii) a performance objective change, and (iii) a service level change including changes in performance and at least one of availability and security.

“2. The system of claim 1, further comprising: (g) a communication port coupled to the profile engine computer to facilitate an exchange of electronic messages, via a distributed cloud-based communication network, to present an interactive graphical user interface at a remote user terminal associated with the user.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the identified resource bundle of components includes a web server, an application server, and a database server.

“4. The system of claim 3, wherein: (i) the web server is associated with a first virtual machine of a web hosting tier, (ii) the application server is associated with a second virtual machine of an application container tier, and (iii) the database server is associated with a third virtual machine of a database instance tier.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the binding of resources to each other is associated with at least one of: (i) a request proxy, (ii) a data source, (iii) an internet protocol address, and (iv) a port range.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the platform request is associated with at least one of: (i) a standardized service template, (ii) a pre-defined profile, (iii) a customized profile, (iv) a set of individual micro infrastructure service definitions, (v) platform input data, (vi) a user defined filter, (vii) an application profile, (viii) a questionnaire, (ix) an enterprise web application interaction, (x) a bundles services input template, and (xi) a user selection of computing resource units.

“7. The system of claim 6, wherein the platform request is associated with at least one of: (i) a framework template, (ii) a runtime template, (iii) a middleware template, (iv) an operating system template, (v) a native service template, (vi) a load balanced, auto-scaled website, (vii) a relational database management system, (viii) a JBoss stack, layer, instances, and associated resources, (ix) website hosting with domain name services entry, and (x) identity and access management.

“8. The system of claim 7, wherein the platform request generates a platform as a service application programming interface reference including: (i) a data type, (ii) common parameters, (iii) common errors, and (iv) regions and endpoints.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the service offering extension includes at least one of: (i) availability, (ii) security, (iii) performance, (iv) agility, (v) workload, (vi) support, (vii) capabilities, (viii) cost, and (ix) monitoring ability.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the Infrastructure-as-a-Service automation components are associated with at least one of: (i) compute, (ii) network, and (iii) storage.

“11. The system of claim 1, wherein the Platform-as-a-Service automation components are associated with at least one of: (i) object storage, (ii) identity, (iii) runtime, (iv) queue, (v) database, (vi) cloud modeling framework, (vii) data types, (viii) common data types, (ix) common errors, and (x) regions and endpoints.

“12. A computerized method to automate platform provisioning for an enterprise, comprising: receiving, at a profile engine computer, a platform request from a user associated with the enterprise, wherein the platform request is associated with a base service level, a multiplier, and at least one service offering extension; identifying, based on electronic data records in a platform resource computer store, a resource bundle of components appropriate in view of the platform request, wherein the resource bundle of components includes a network component and at least one of: (i) middleware services and (ii) a network balancer; outputting platform requirements based at least in part on the identified resource bundle of components; receiving, by a platform generator system computer, the platform requirements from the profile engine computer; providing input data to an asynchronous representational state transfer application programming interface service; storing final platform definition information for the enterprise into a central repository; processing, by a platform provisioning system computer, Infrastructure-as-a-Service automation components; processing, by the platform provisioning system computer, Platform-as-a-Service automation components; utilizing a return service to generate infrastructure binding data to couple components in the resource bundle to each other; receiving, at an automated build platform de-creation computer, a platform de-creation request from the user associated with the enterprise, the platform de-creation request indicating that components of a currently deployed platform are no longer needed by the enterprise; responsive to the received platform de-creation request, arranging, by the automated build platform de-creation computer, for computing resources associated with the platform to be released; providing, by the central repository to the profile engine computer, feedback data; and using, by the profile engine computer, the feedback data to improve responses to future platform requests from users, the feedback data including: (i) a component change, (ii) a performance objective change, and (iii) a service level change including changes in performance and at least one of availability and security.

“13. The method of claim 12, wherein the identified resource bundle of components includes a web server, an application server, and a database server.

“14. The method of claim 12, wherein the platform request is associated with at least one of: (i) a standardized service template, (ii) a pre-defined profile, (iii) a customized profile, (iv) a set of individual micro infrastructure service definitions, (v) platform input data, (vi) a user defined filter, (vii) an application profile, and (viii) a questionnaire.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

URL and more information on this patent, see: Nigro, Joseph Nicholas. Automated platform provisioning system. U.S. Patent Number 11936745, filed September 22, 2022, and published online on March 19, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11936745)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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