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Performance prediction service using business-process informationRelated Patent Categories: Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management, Or Cost/price Determination, Automated Electrical Financial Or Business Practice Or Management Arrangement, Operations Research, Market Analysis, Demand Forecasting Or SurveyingPerformance prediction service using business-process information description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060111960, Performance prediction service using business-process information. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention generally relates to performance prediction techniques and, more particularly, to performance prediction techniques that utilize business-process information such as transaction history and log information. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Existing reputation and performance prediction services and systems (including, for example, the Better Business Bureau in the offline world, Open Ratings and the eBay.com rating systems online) allow users to retrieve information about the reputation of businesses, or the likely success of a transaction, by sending queries of various kinds to the system, and receiving responses. Currently known systems are based on the post-fact reputation-related information (solicited and unsolicited) that is supplied to them by participants/users. Efforts are being made by companies and individuals to provide methods and systems that can rate businesses performance and, in some limited cases, predict performance. [0003] For example, U.S. patent publication nos. US20030033298A1 and US20030033299A1 (both filed in the name of Sundaresan et al.) disclose systems and methods for integrating on-line and off-line user ratings of businesses, which are relevant to a given Internet search topic with search engines. Both U.S. patent publications disclose that the businesses' ratings are compiled from off-line and on-line surveys provided by a third party. However, performance prediction techniques are not disclosed. [0004] Open Ratings (Waltham, Mass.) is a leading supply management organization which provides technology to predict performance of a supplier based on historical supplier trends, socioeconomic data, financial information, major events, users' assessments, questionnaires and comments. Their latest product, the SBManager, safeguards suppliers from the manipulation of results. Though performance prediction is part of the technology, the list of resources used for performance prediction does not contain internal logs and internal business process information. [0005] Other efforts in this area are limited to information tracking. These efforts generally fall into two categories: (i) systems that track business operational data related to sales, production, logistics, financial operations in order to spot business problems more effectively (i.e., business activity management or BAM); or (ii) systems that track service level agreement (SLA) compliance of service providers in order to keep current customers satisfied. [0006] Various companies are providing BAM products. One of the products, Celequest 2.0 (developed by Celequest Corporation of Redwood City, Calif.), captures business events as they occur and combines them with related operational and historical data to provide a real-time data matrix. This approach allows systems to ease the process of finding problems and notifying the right people about them. Another product is Vigilys developed by Polexis (San Diego, Calif.). Vigilys is oriented toward defense and homeland security. It uses BAM concepts to manage crisis situations in real time. The products mentioned above, as well as other BAM products, process business events as they occur and automatically share the information the events produce with the interested parties. However, such products do not use the events and information for performance prediction. [0007] Currently, Cisco Systems (San Jose, Calif.) offers a product known as Pulsar xSP that allows a service provider to know how a service is performing in real-time. Pulsar is a policy-based service level compliance platform designed specifically to monitor hosted applications from the end-user perspective. This product helps a service provider to keep existing customers satisfied. It does not use the data thus gathered to make predictions about probable future behavior. [0008] Similarly, a product known as Service Flow (developed by Digital Fuel of San Mateo, Calif.) offers Performance SLA Management Software that provides tools to track and audit SLAs for providers and customers. [0009] Both Pulsar and Service Flow track performance of an offered service. They are not designed for prediction of performance based on the real-time data that they gather. [0010] Cable and Wireless plc. (United Kingdom) provides a daily or monthly summary of its SLA compliance data on its web page, but it does not use this data to predict probable future behavior. [0011] Third-party verification of a service provider's performance for a particular customer is offered by Keynote Systems (San Mateo, Calif.). Their product, SLA Perspective, offers independent SLA verification of performance of content delivery networks (CDN), Internet service providers, and Web hosting companies. [0012] BAM products utilize real-time data to track a business and spot business problems more effectively. Products like Pulsar xSP, Service Flow and Keynote SLA Perspective allow SLA tracking and SLA compliance verification. However, none of these existing products are capable of providing effective performance prediction services. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0013] The present invention provides performance prediction techniques that utilize business-process information such as transaction history and log information. [0014] For example, in one aspect of the invention, a computer-based technique for providing a performance prediction service comprises the following steps/operations. First, business-process information associated with a business is obtained. Then, a performance estimation function is generated based at least in part on the business-process information, the performance estimation function being usable in responding to a query obtained from a potential customer of the business. [0015] Post-fact reputation information associated with the business may be obtained. The post-fact reputation information may be used, alone or in combination with the business-process information, to generate the performance estimation function. The step/operation of obtaining post-fact reputation information may further comprise obtaining such information from one or more prior clients of the business. [0016] The step/operation of obtaining business-process information may further comprise obtaining such information from the business in real-time or offline. Such business-process information obtaining step/operation may further comprise obtaining such information from the business in response to a single request or in a continually streaming form. Such business-process information step/operation may further comprise obtaining business operational information associated with at least one of transactions, backorders, cancelled orders, and service level agreement compliance associated with the business. [0017] The technique of the invention may further comprise the step/operation of removing sensitive information from the business-process information. [0018] In another aspect of the invention, a technique for providing a performance prediction service comprises obtaining a query from a potential customer of a business, and utilizing a performance estimation function in responding to the query obtained from the potential customer of the business, wherein the performance estimation function is generated based at least in part on business-process information obtained from the business. [0019] These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments thereof, which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawings. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0020] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a performance prediction system, according to one embodiment of the present invention; Continue reading about Performance prediction service using business-process information... 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