Some embodiments establish for an entity a virtual network over several public clouds of several public cloud providers and/or in several regions. In some embodiments, the virtual network is an overlay network that spans across several public clouds to interconnect one or more private networks (e.g., networks within branches, divisions, departments of the entity or their associated datacenters), mobile users, and SaaS (Software as a Service) provider machines, and other web applications of the entity. The virtual network in some embodiments can be configured to optimize the routing of the entity's data messages to their destinations for best end-to-end performance, reliability and security, while trying to minimize the routing of this traffic through the Internet. Also, the virtual network in some embodiments can be configured to optimize the layer 4 processing of the data message flows passing through the network.

Data is processed in a telecommunications network. First and second notifications are received, via an input interface, from first and second Charging Trigger Functions, CTFs, in the telecommunications network. The first and second notifications relate to network resource usage in the telecommunications network. A scalable transformation function is used to transform data derived from the first and second notifications into a first usage detail report in a first detail report format and a second usage detail report in a second, different detail report format. The first and second usage detail reports are output, via an output interface, to at least one recipient system.

A communication network (10) tracking usage information for each of two or more components of traffic associated with the same application identifier provides a basis for differentiating charging with respect to the two or more components. For example, traffic carried by a communication network (10) for a social media application running on a User Equipment (UE) (12) may be identified by a corresponding application identifier. However, the so-identified traffic may include multiple components, such as traffic providing the social-media service(s) and traffic constituting advertising or other ancillary or supplementary content. Tracking and reporting the network usage associated with respective components, i.e., at a granularity finer than that provided by the overall application or traffic flow identifier, provides an advantageous basis for differentiated charging as between the respective components.

An augmented reality-based lighting design method includes displaying, by an augmented reality device, a real-time image of a target physical area on a display screen. The method further includes displaying, by the augmented reality device, a lighting fixture 3-D model on the display screen in response to a user input, where the lighting fixture 3-D model is overlaid on the real-time image of the target physical area. The method also includes displaying, by the augmented reality device, a lighting pattern on the display screen overlaid on the real-time image of the target physical area, wherein the lighting pattern is generated based on at least photometric data associated with the lighting fixture 3-D model.

Certain aspects of the disclosure are directed to correlating communication data between a plurality of communication service providers, via a data communications server. According to a specific example, the data communications server receives a selection of a communications service provider to interface with the data communications server. In certain instances, an event associated with a first user of the data communications server is detected, the data communications server identifies a second user associated with the event and a type of interaction for the event. The data communications server provides instructions to the selected communications service provider to retrieve data correlated with the second user, and displays the correlated data received from the server of the communications service provider on a device accessible by the first user.

Disclosed aspects manage a shared pool of configurable computing resources. A resource demand value is identified for a target host. Resource supply values of dynamically-assigned resources are computed for donor hosts. Using the resource demand value and the resource supply values, dynamically-assigned resources are reclaimed from the donor hosts and distributed to the target host.

A cloud-management system intercepts API calls from a client application. Based on the expected amount of cloud resources required to service the API call, and given the terms of the client's billing plan, the system estimates the cost to service the call. The system embeds this cost into its response to the API call and the client application, or an IDE hosting the application, keeps a running total of API-related costs incurred by the application. The system can also run in an emulation mode, estimating the application's API resource-consumption costs without actually consuming cloud resources. In this mode, the system replaces each GET and PUT call in the intercepted API call with an equivalent HEAD call that does not consume resources. The system still, however, predicts the actual cost of the original API call by returning the cost of each original GET and PUT.

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a plurality of accounting nodes, each accounting node being associated with a service node of a communication network, each accounting node being configured to collect data usage information for a network segment of the communication network including an associated service node, and an accounting server in data communication with accounting nodes of the plurality of accounting nodes, the accounting server configured to receive from the accounting nodes the data usage information for each service node and determine billing for data usage of each network segment. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Presented are methods and systems to universally assess composite utility consumption (1) in which a plurality of real-time and batch sensor readings such as from multiple disparate utility sensor data inputs (3) may be acquired and stored such as into a local device (2) or a central data warehouse (6). A composite utility estimated cost generator (9) can generate missing or uncorrelated data and a collected composite utility data information correlator (11) can correlate the data so it can be applied to determine some type of composite utility cost information. For real-time calculation, a disparate utility rate information accessor (8) can obtain multiple items of disparate rate information and this can use with correlated data to create a composite utility consumption and spend so a user can manage and control utility usage for a home, building, facility, plant, specific equipment, or the like. Cost information, such as a rate of spend or spend amount(s) to date or for a period may be presented to user in a variety of visualizations and reporting formats including specific time usage and spend information, specific time range usage and spend, and time-of-use billing information for specific real-time data points. The visualization and reporting may be used to answer a plurality of usage questions along with specific characterizations of utility spend across time of day domains and specific equipment usage domains thus affording more effective utility cost management.

Disclosed aspects relate to managing asset placement with respect to a distributed computing environment or a stream computing environment. A set of host computing resource requirement data is detected. The detection is with respect to an asset for placement to the distributed computing environment. The set of host computing resource requirement data is for the asset such as a set of stream operators or a set of processing elements. A set of computing resource profile data for a set of hosts is identified. By comparing the set of host computing resource requirement data for the asset and the set of computing resource profile data for the set of hosts, an asset placement arrangement is determined. Based on the asset placement arrangement, the asset is established.