Embodiments of the present invention provide methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer program products for predicting network asset requests for a future network time interval.

A connection management device is included in a terminal device, which is communicatively connected to a plurality of server devices. A location information acquirer acquires location information indicating a location where the terminal device exists. A region determiner determines based on the acquired location information, a region where the terminal device exists. A connection destination determiner determines, based on the determined region, which of the plurality of server devices is the server device to which the terminal device is to connect. A transmitter transmits to the determined server device a request for connection to connect to the server device.

An aspect of the disclosed invention provides a network apparatus for a network function, the network apparatus comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory comprising code that, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the network apparatus to: in response to a request from a service consumer, determine a first network service function for providing services to the service consumer; determine an identity of a second network service function, wherein the second network service function is an alternative or backup network service function to provide the service to the service consumer; and provide the service consumer with the identity of the second network service function.

A method for exchanging data between several field devices includes: implementing an exchange of data between a requesting field device and a responding field device using a publish-subscribe principle; subscribing the responding field device to request messages whose message titles include a specification of a field device identifier of the responding field device; subscribing the requesting field device to response messages whose message titles include a request identifier known to the requesting field device; the requesting field device publishing a request message to a data broker, the message title of the request message including the request identifier and the specification; the responding field device receiving the request message, evaluating the request message, and publishing a corresponding response message to the data broker, the message title of the response message including the request identifier; and the requesting field device receiving the response message based on the subscription to the response message.

A system and method for securing authenticated communication through a device that is able to trigger an offline physical event through an online communication process.

A service provider may select one or more physical locations of existing data centers for the user for deployment of the user's computing resources. In various embodiments, the service provider may collect parameters from the user to create a custom selection of physical locations for computing services to be deployed for the user, which may be a strategically selected subset of all of the existing data centers available. Some parameters for selection may include expected location of end-users, cost tolerance, latency tolerance, and fault risk diversity. In some situations, cost may have an inverse relationship with latency, such that as cost increases, latency decreases (and vice versa). The rule sets may be created using the parameters, possibly with weights assigned to different parameters based on information received via the user interface. The rule sets may be formed and used to select physical locations for deployment of computing resources.

Embodiments of the present invention provide methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer program products for predicting network asset requests for a future network time interval.

A method of connecting applications over a network can be provided by a connection profile broker that can determine that server metadata included in a server application instance and the client metadata included in a client application instance describe complementary functions and therefore may be appropriate for connection via the connection profile. To further determine this, the connection profile broker can determine whether the client application instance is related to the server application instance by at least one type of relationship that is included in the client scope metadata and further determines whether the server application instance is related to the client application instance by at least one type of relationship that is included in the server scope metadata. The connection profile broker can also be operatively coupled to a firewall, which can request information from the broker to determine whether the connection should be allowed.

Methods and apparatus are disclosed herein that enable an infrastructure service to route messages to various servers, even if the servers are not addressed by individual public network addresses. The infrastructure service distributed messages by processing a portion of the message through a hash function. By utilizing a reverse hash process, a server can determine a custom port number that will cause the hash algorithm to route a reply message directly to the selected server even when addressed to a communal address.

A method and control node for managing cloud resources in a communications network for a client being served by a primary data center holding service data associated with a cloud service being executed for the client in the primary data center. A first backup data center having free processing and storage resources for the cloud service, is selected based on usage of links between a source node associated with the client and the first backup data center. The service data is then saved in the first backup data center, thereby enabling the cloud service to be recovered in the first backup data center. If the usage of links in potential communication paths between the source node and the first backup data center exceeds a link usage threshold, the saved service data may be transferred from the first backup data center to a second backup data center.