Service Provider Management System for Scalable Storage Registration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Corporate enterprises face challenges in scaling infrastructure to meet increasing demands for bandwidth, compute power, and storage while maintaining competitiveness, as the rise of service providers and outsourcing shifts the focus from internal services to external solutions, leading to cost pressures and the need for efficient data storage management.
Innovation Solution
The Service Provider Management System (SPMS) enables service providers to offer turnkey data storage solutions by allocating and managing storage resources, allowing customers to register and utilize storage resources efficiently, with features like billing and storage-related services, supporting a tiered service provider model.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If companies scale infrastructure to meet increasing demands for storage and bandwidth, then service capability is improved, but cost increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal service provider management system that can manage multiple types of storage resources (distributed storage, network storage, cloud storage) through a single platform. This multi-functionality allows the system to serve diverse storage needs without requiring separate infrastructure for each storage type, thereby improving service capability while controlling costs through resource consolidation and shared management overhead.
2Productivity
If companies out-source services to focus on core competencies, then operational efficiency is improved, but control over internal services deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary service provider management system that sits between the customer's core business operations and the external storage service providers. This intermediary maintains control over storage services by providing a unified management interface, resource allocation controls, and policy enforcement mechanisms, while still leveraging external storage resources for operational efficiency.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a tiered service provider model is implemented, then service scalability is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the service provider ecosystem into multiple tiers (first-tier service providers directly managing storage resources, and second-tier service providers offering managed services on top of first-tier providers). This segmentation enables scalability by allowing new providers to join at different levels without disrupting the entire system, while the standardized interface layers manage the complexity of inter-tier interactions.
Data Source
AI summary
A registration application that allows a service provider customer that is using data storage resources (storage and/or storage-related services) provided by the service provider to register with a Service Provider Management System (SPMS) that is maintained by the service provider. The registration application executes on each of the customer's servers (that is, those which are connected to resources being used) to produce registration information and provides that registration information to the SPMS. The resources have a scratch pad storage area that is used by the servers and the SPMS to communicate with each other. The registration information is passed to the SPMS by the servers indirectly via the scratch pad area. The SPMS uses the registration information to associate customer information with the resources used by that customer's servers. The association of the customer information and resources can then be used by the SPMS to track customer usage of the resources for billing and other applications.