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Anatomy of the S3A filesystem client
19 juillet 2018Kyle Bader
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Amazon introduced their Simple Storage Service (S3) in March 2006, which proved to be a watershed moment that ushered in the era of cloud computing services. It wasn't long before folks started trying to use Amazon S3 in conjunction with Apache Hadoop; in fact, the first attempt was the S3 block filesystem, which was completed before the end of the year. This early integration stored data in a way that facilitated fast renames and deletes, but came at the expense of not being able to access data that had been written to S3 directly. Accessing data written by other applications was highly desirable, and by 2008 the S3N, or S3 Native Filesystem, was merged into Apache Hadoop. The following year, Amazon introduced Elastic MapReduce, which included Amazon's own close-sourced S3 filesystem client.
Netflix was an early adopter of Elastic MapReduce, which was used to analyze data to improve streaming quality. This workload was one of three detailed in Amazon's press release announcing Netflix's intent to migrate a variety of applications to Amazon. Fast forward to 2013 and "any data set worth retaining" was stored in S3. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first public reference of a multi-cluster data platform that used S3 for shared storage. With all the chips on the table, Netflix and other cloud heavyweights started seriously thinking about how to better leverage the S3 API and improve S3 client performance. This led to the development of the successor to S3N, named S3A. The development of the S3A filesystem client has manifested as a series of phases and is still seeing loads of active development from the likes of Netflix, Cloudera, Hortonworks, and a whole host of others. Each phase of development is tracked in the Hadoop JIRA:
Phase I, available in Hadoop 2.7.0
Phase II, available in Hadoop 2.8.1
Phase III, available in Hadoop 2.9.0 / 3.0.0
Phase IV, available in Hadoop 3.1.0
Phase V, targeting Hadoop 3.2.0
Downstream Hadoop distributions have done a terrific job of ensuring that juicy features are expeditiously backported, so even if your vendors distribution is based on an older Hadoop version, it's likely that they are ready to consume data stored in S3.
Working with Ceph
Back in the early days of Ceph, we quickly came to the realization that it would be useful to allow folks to use the S3 API to interact with their Ceph storage infrastructure. By doing so, we'd be able to leverage the might of the Amazon ecosystem, including all the SDKs and tools written to interact with Amazon S3. The Ceph object gateway was conceived for this application and is an essential ingredient in providing private infrastructure operators a means to extend cloud object storage modalities into their data center. The S3 API has an ever-expanding set of calls, and keeping up requires a lot of hard work. To keep us honest, we actively develop a functional test suite affectionately named s3-tests. The test suite is so useful that it's even been adopted by other storage vendors to ensure their products can have the same high level of fidelity with the S3 API—How flattering!
So Ceph and S3 are like two high school buddies, and that's great. But what's required to ensure maximum fidelity with Amazon S3?
The Amazon S3 API provides a high-level container for objects which, in S3 parlance, is called a bucket. All objects are stored in exactly one bucket, and each bucket is mapped to a single Amazon S3 region. If you send a GET request for an object that lives in a bucket in another region, you'll get a 302 redirect to the proper region. PUT requests sent to the wrong region will fail and be provided with the endpoint of the region the bucket calls home. If you have multiple Ceph clusters and want to emulate this behavior, you can do so by having each cluster be a distinct zone, in a distinct zonegroup, but with a common realm. For more details, refer to Ceph multi-site documentation.
If data engineers have a level of understanding about different endpoints available to them, then they can set fs.s3a.endpoint in a properties file such that it directs requests to the correct Ceph cluster or Amazon S3 region.
If you want to be helpful and know that an analytics cluster will only be talking to a single Ceph cluster, and not Amazon S3, then you might set the fs.s3a.endpoint in the core-site.xml. If you plan on having multiple Ceph clusters, or communicating with a Ceph cluster and the public cloud, then you have a few options. One is to set a default f3.s3a.endpoint in the analytics clusters' core-site.xml to either an Amazon S3 regional endpoint or a Ceph endpoint. Application owners can still override this default with a properties file.
With S3A from Apache Hadoop 2.8.1 users can define different S3A properties for different buckets. This is handy for applications that might operate on data sets in one or more Ceph cluster or Amazon S3 region.
Now that there is a level of understanding around endpoints, we can move on to authentication and access control. Amazon S3 has evolved over the years to provide more flexible control over who has access to what. Coarsely, the evolution can be broken down into multiple approaches.
S3 ACLs
Bucket policy with S3 users
STS issued temporary credentials
The first approach is table stakes for any storage system that wants to allow applications to use the S3 API to interact with them. Each user has an access key and a secret key which they use to sign requests. Buckets always belong to a single user, and buckets can be specified as either public or private. Public buckets is the only means of sharing data between users, which is pretty inflexible. Ceph has supported basic S3 ACLs since the Ceph object gateway was introduced, and it's not uncommon to see this be the only means of providing access control with other systems that tout an S3 compatible API. These access and secret keys can be mapped to the fs.s3a.access.key and fs.s3a.secret.key parameters in core-site.xml, in a properties file submitted with an application, or the most secure option: storing them in encrypted files using the Hadoop Credentials API.
Ceph doesn't stop there. With Red Hat Ceph Storage 3.0, based on upstream Luminous, we added support for bucket policy, which allows cross user bucket sharing. This means one user's private bucket can be shared with another user through bucket policy.
This is all good and well, but sometimes you want to manage access control for groups of users, instead of having to update a bunch of bucket policies whenever a user needs to be removed from a group. Amazon S3 doesn't yet have its own notion of groups. Instead, Amazon has IAM, which is a means of enforcing role-based access control. IAM supports users, groups, and roles. This means you can create policies for a group, instead of having policy entries for each individual user. Unfortunately, IAM groups cannot be principals in bucket policies. IAM roles are similar to a user, but they do not have credentials. IAM roles delegate to some other authentication provider, and that authentication provider decides if the request is allowed to assume a particular role.
This is where Amazon STS comes in. STS issues temporary authentication tokens, which are mapped to IAM roles, and that mapping is attested by an external identity provider. As such, the external credentials provider can attest to whether a particular user can receive a token that allows that user to assume a IAM role. The S3A filesystem client supports the use of these tokens by changing the S3A Credentials Provider and setting the fs.s3a.session.token parameter in addition to fs.s3a.access.key and fs.s3a.secret.key. The upstream community is currently working on STS and IAM support in the Ceph object gateway, which will bring all this goodness to folks interacting with Ceph object stores. If this is important to your organization, we're interested in getting feedback that helps us prioritize STS actions like AssumeRoleWithSAML and AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity.
Bucket prefix vs. path
The AWS Java SDK for S3 default is to use bucket prefix notation when sending requests and, by extension, so does the S3A filesystem client. If your Ceph object gateway endpoint is s3.example.com, then requests are sent to bucket.s3.example.com. To ensure your Ceph storage infrastructure behaves the same way as Amazon S3, you'll need to configure a few things on the infrastructure side. The first is including the rgw_dns_name parameter in the [rgw] or[global] block of your ceph.conf configuration file. The value of this parameter in this scenario would be s3.example.com. Now, in order for the client to resolve the bucket subdomain, you'll also need a wildcard DNS record in the form of *.s3.example.com that resolves to your gateway virtual IP address. To support SSL with bucket prefix notation, you'll need to use a certificate with a wildcard subject alternative name (SAN) wherever it is being used to terminate TLS.
If you're not on the infrastructure side of things, and you want to consume Ceph object infrastructure where this machinery hasn't been configured, then you can opt for path style access by setting fs.s3a.path.style.access to true. In this configuration, requests will be sent to s3.example.com/bucket instead of bucket.s3.example.com.
There is a third trick, which might be helpful in unusual scenarios, and that's to create a bucket with uppercase characters. Because DNS isn't case sensitive, the SDK automatically switches over to path style access.
We talked a bit about SSL/TLS in the previous section, but only insofar as how to configure things on the infrastructure side. The S3A filesystem client will default to using SSL/TLS. Changing this behavior is done by switching the fs.s3a.connection.ssl.enabled parameter to false. This is useful in scenarios like testing, or when SSL isn't yet configured for your Ceph storage infrastructure. In a production environment, the adage "dance like nobody's watching, and encrypt like everyone is," still applies. Check out this blog post for a thorough walk through on configuring SSL/TLS for you Ceph object storage system.
In addition to transport encryption, objects can be encrypted. Amazon S3 provides two categories of object encryption: (1) encryption at the client and (2) server-side encryption. The S3A filesystem client does not support using client-side encryption, but it does support all three varieties of server-side encryption. The three server-side encryption options are:
SSE-S3: Keys managed internally by Amazon S3
SSE-C: Keys managed by the client and passed to Amazon S3 to encrypt/decrypt requests
SSE-KMS: Keys managed through Amazon's Key Management Service (KMS)
With the advent of Red Hat Ceph Storage 3.0, we support the SSE-C flavor of server-side encryption. Configuring the S3A filesystem client to use it is a simple affair, involving only two parameters: (1) fs.s3a.server-side-encryption-algorithm should be set to SSE-C and (2) the value of fs.s3a.server-side-encryption.key should be set to your secret key. I suspect most folks will want to do this by way of a properties file.
Upstream Ceph also has support for SSE-KMS, which is intended to be integrated with OpenStack Barbican for key management. I imagine it's only a matter of time before this is also supported in Red Hat Ceph Storage.
Fast upload
There are two main ways of performing writes with the S3A filesystem client. The default mode buffers uploads to disk before sending a request to Amazon S3; it's important to make sure that the directory you are buffering to is large and fast. I prefer to specify a directory supported by a local SSD. Even with fast media, this can be expensive from an IO perspective, so an alternative is to use in memory buffers. The S3A filesystem client offers two in memory buffer options: (1) one using arrays and (2) one using byte buffers. You have to be careful when using memory buffers, because it's easy to run out if you don't properly size both your JVM and YARN containers. If the available memory permits you to use in memory buffers, they can be much faster than their disk-based brethren.
Giving it a try
There's an easy way to learn how to use the S3A filesystem client with Ceph, and this section will walk you through setting up a development environment using Minishift. If you've never used Minishift before, it's relatively painless to set up. The guides for installation on Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux can be found here.
Once you've installed Minishift on your local system, drop into a terminal and fire it up.
minishift start
Now that we have a Minishift environment running, we're going to get Ceph Nano running so we can use it as a S3A endpoint. To get started, you'll need to download a couple of YAML files: ceph-nano.yml and ceph-rgw-keys.yml. Once those files are downloaded to your working directory, we can use the oc command line utility to deploy Ceph Nano:
oc --as system:admin adm policy add-scc-to-user anyuid \
system:serviceaccount:myproject:default
oc create -f ceph-rgw-keys.yml
oc create -f ceph-nano.yml
oc expose pod ceph-nano-0 --type=NodePort
You should have a Ceph Nano service running at this point and may be wondering how you're going to interact with it. Jupyter Notebooks have become wildly popular in the analytics and data-science communities because of their ability to create a single artifact, the notebook, which contains both code and documentation. As if that wasn't enough, you can interact with them from the comfort of your web browser. Here at Red Hat, we've been fostering an awesome community called radanalytics.io. They're hard at work empowering intelligent application development on OpenShift. They've provided a base notebook application that I used as a starting point for playing with S3A from Jupyter, because its container image is neatly bundled with Spark and PySpark libraries. You can get Jupyter up and running in your Minishift environment with just a few commands:
oc new-app https://github.com/mmgaggle/ceph-notebook \
-e JUPYTER_NOTEBOOK_PASSWORD=developer \
-e RGW_API_ENDPOINT=$(minishift openshift service ceph-nano-0 --url) \
-e JUPYTER_NOTEBOOK_X_INCLUDE=http://mmgaggle-bd.s3.amazonaws.com/ceph-notebook.ipynb
oc env --from=secret/ceph-rgw-keys dc/ceph-notebook
oc expose svc/ceph-notebook
oc status
The "oc status" command will provide a http://ceph-notebook-myproject.$(IP).nip.io URL. Load that into your browser and follow along with your browser!
Kyle Bader
A look at Red Hat Ceph Storage 5


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Crowd-sourcing "citizen science," new products and ideas
Citizen engagement is essential to our fast-changing civilization. Politics could certainly use more empowerment of common citizens. So could innovative commerce, and even national defense relies on a robust citizenry. But one area with especially bright prospects, is crowd-sourced -- or individual participation in -- inventiveness and science.
It's a topic I've discussed many times. As a teenager, growing up in Los Angeles, I participated in the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), gathering mountains of data for professional astronomers, one of countless such groups that you might learn about via the Society of Amateur Scientists. In my new novel Existence, I portray this trend accelerating as individuals and small groups become ever more agile at sleuthing, data collection and analysis -- and forming very very smart, ad-hoc, problem-solving "smart mobs." But even in the months since that book was published, reality seems to be catching up with fiction.
For example, as funding dollars for science are increasingly under threat, a number of groups are offering opportunities for crowd-funded basic research, enabling citizens to interact directly with teams at the cutting edge of some topic. Envision a kind of KickStarter for science research. Dr. Jai Ranganathan, co-founder of the SciFund Challenge, asks "What would this world look like if every scientist touched a thousand people each year with their science message? How would science-related policy decisions be different if every citizen had a scientist that they personally knew? One thing is for sure: a world with closer connections between scientists and the public would be a better world. And crowdfunding might just help to get us there."
Backers receive periodic updates on their chosen projects and direct communication with researchers. They may also receive souvenirs, acknowledgment in journal articles, invitations to private seminars, visits to laboratories or field sites, and occasionally, naming rights to new discoveries or species. One advantage to researchers is that they can receive funding in a matter of weeks, rather than months.
Current projects on the science funding site Petridish include: saving the Samaki fish in the world's largest desert lake, monitoring glacial lakes, and tracking sharks with satellites. Or on Microryza, you can contribute to tracking Magellenic Penguins, or exploring the stability of neural networks. iAMscientist offers opportunities as diverse as monitoring Diamondback Terrapins with new tracking technologies, and robotic hand rehabilitation for stroke victims. Recent projects on RocketHub's SciFund Challenge include projects to identify new drug candidates to treat Alzheimer's disease, developing artificial photosynthesis, or saving stressed coral reefs on Kiribati. Or you can donate to specific projects, like LiftPort, which aims to build a space elevator.
If you're looking for more active involvement in research projects, you might try SciStarter, Scientific American's Citizen Science, or Zooniverse, which offers a compilation of projects for citizen involvement, such as studying how solar storms affect conditions on earth at Solar Stormwatch and identifying exoplanets at PlanetHunters. Volunteers can help classify galaxies at Galaxy Zoo, learn to map retinal connections at EyeWire, map the age of Lunar rocks with MoonZoo, or analyze extraterrestrial signals with SETILive. You can donate your home computer's processing power to SETI@Home to help analyze data from radio telescopes such as Arecibo.
Indeed, one worthy project that could help in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence more effectively than the sadly obsolete program at the Seti Institute would be to re-ignite Project Argus, the alternative endeavor of the Seti League, that envisions setting up 5000 radio telescopes in back yards across the planet, keeping the entire sky under observation, all the time, instead of peering through a super-narrow soda straw at distant specks of space, one at a time. A system far more likely to catch the rare blip of an alien race "pinging" us, which recent calculations show to be more plausible than the imagined tutorial "beacons." In any event, this is where one millionaire could help thousands of eager (and tech savvy) amateurs to become key members of a worldwide smart mob, hunting ol' ET down!
Citizens have long participated in regional bird counts, as well as monitoring butterfly migration, wildlife, and local water quality. Technology has enabled high quality data collection and recording tools to be widely available to amateurs. You can even do science without leaving your home...the online game Foldit allows gamers to compete to fold protein structures to achieve the best scoring (lowest energy) configuration.
Whatever your level of involvement, you can have the satisfaction of participating in humanity's greatest endeavor. In an era when political factions and media empires are waging relentless "war on science" this trend toward active participation -- or providing some financial support -- is the surest way to help support an active, vigorous, future hungry and scientific civilization.
Well... and vote, of course. And show your crazy uncle the melting of the arctic...
==Crowd Sourcing Ideas and Innovation! ==
Then there's tinkering and creating new products, new services, the sort of thing that Adam Smith (and anyone with sense) proclaimed as the heart and soul of productive enterprise. Sure, good things have happened to help stimulate creativity. Patent law was (believe it or not) a huge advance over what came before. Venture capitalists tend to have the imagination of Galapagos finches, but they, too, were somewhat of a step forward. Only, now, as we finally creep out of the dullard doldrums of the Naughty Oughts, there arrive dozens of new approaches that may do a lot of good, stimulating our creative juices.
Unused inventions get crowd-sourced spark: Marblar is the latest in a string of "open innovation" sites that attempt, in one way or another, to encourage inventiveness online. It does this by crowdsourcing a simple request:find new uses for under-exploited patents.
Related endeavors? ArticleOne asks its community of users to find "prior art" – published documents that show an invention existed before it was patented – to quash patents that firms have been accused of infringing. (It also helps good/original patents to thrive!)
Or take: Innocentive, where companies and NGOs present problems that they feel need solving – such as how to develop a portable rainwater storage system for the developing world. On the flipside, IBridgeNetwork and Yet2.com post university and corporate research in a bid to find people who'll license their technology to commercialize it.
== Then build it! ==
And the Maker Trend builds momentum! Read about new companies that will bring 3D printing to the home. Letting you take a downloaded or self-made template and order up a physical version. Even a sculpture made from your head-scan. Commercial 3-D printing works with only a few dozen types of materials, mostly metals and plastics, but more are in the works. Researchers are experimenting with exotic "inks" that range from wood pulp to sugar. (And stem cells! But that's a different story...) Some devices can extrude liquid foods, like icing and melted chocolate. Soon we'll be able to print everything from birthday cakes to electric circuits, potentially making complex electronics from scratch.
"When 3-D printers make an object, they use an "additive" technology, which is to say they build objects layer by layer from the bottom up. (By contrast, other computer-controlled machines, such as the CNC router and CNC mill, are "subtractive"; they use a spinning tool to cut or grind away material.)"
Yes yes. But will you (gentle reader) forgive me if I add a perhaps mysterious parenthetical? Both methods miss the real deal. I know how to do it -- create 3D objects -- by actual random access of individual points in space! But I ain't telling.
==Programming for Everyone==
While we're on the burgeoning topic of crowd-sourcing… Inform the world about Raspberry Pi! Can a $35 computer persuade kids to put down their smartphones and try their hands at programming? Or at least explore the guts that make things work? Another part of the new Maker Movemen.
Long before I keynoted a recent Maker Faire, I was trying to throw incendiaries about this matter. For example in the Salon Magazine article "Why Johnny Can't Code," which complained about the lack of a common – very basic – programming language in all computers. Something simple, reliable and universal -- remember when ALL "home" computers had such a lingua franca language that all kids could fool with? One so common that textbook publishers used to include try-it-at-home exercises in all the math and science books. Yes that language sucked. But millions of kids got a taste of what made the pixel move -- (an algorithm!) -- and that does not happen anymore.
(Incidentally, that article brought me more hate mail than even my pieces dissing Star wars!)
Perhaps Raspberry Pi will help to change that, yet again.Tomorrow's kids may know more about the "guts" of their technological world than the video-game generation does. In part thanks to great efforts like this.
== And finally... some sci-miscellany ==
Physics wonks! Uncertainty over the Uncertainty Principle? Canadian researchers have cleverly used "weak measurement" methods to glimpse the polarization of a light wave before it enters a strong measurement device, in order to appraise whether the effects of measurement are as predicted by the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle. If verified, the results might indicate that Uncertainty caused by measurement may be but smaller and more complex than we thought. Maybe.
Random science thought...Is science a one-man enterprise? Diametrically opposite to fantasy's romantic images of wizards, the best scientists publish and share as quickly as they can. And even when they have towering egos, they know they aren't doing it alone. The Poster Boy is a good example. Galileo is credited with a number of discoveries during the Gosh-Wow-Look! era of astronomy. Yet very few were uniquely his. As one of you commented recently: "Marius concluded that Jupiter had moons one day later than Galileo. David Fabricius published a pamphlet several months before Scheiner made his meticulously documented series of observations, which in turn was a month or two ahead of Galileo. Harriot as usual was ahead of everyone, and as usual never published. Sure, he deserved attention as the sun around which science revolved in his era." (See my short story about Galileo at Harvard!) "But take Galileo out of the equation, and all the same discoveries are made. We'd be talking about Scheiner's sunspots, Fabricius' lunar mountains, Marius' moons of Jupiter, or Lembo's phases of Venus!"
Sexiest job of the 21st Century: Data Scientist, according to The Harvard Business Review.
Should our 8 hours of sleep be divided into "firste sleep" and seconde sleep"?
Is it really about to be 2025... the home time of the Jetsons? Here's a contemplation of the Jetsons, and how they influenced our attitudes (and expectations) of the Future. Even more chilling, it will soon be 2015, the (back to the) Future of Marty McFly... and where's my Mr. Fusion?
Yes, I know... this was a long posting. But it's about the really important stuff! Alas, next time we'll return to the aggravating irritation known as politics.
Posted by David Brin at 7:57 AM
Labels: amateur science, citizen, citizen science, crowd fund science, empowerment, volunteer
"Random access of individual points in space"? If you're referring to flipping matter out of the vacuum, that'd knock transporter tech into a cocked hat, and how could it be done fast enough in an acceleration field (Even with preexisting matter.) to avoid distortion?
Rx247 Blog said...
Citizen science is scientific research conducted by crowdsourcing, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists. Formally, citizen science has been defined as "the systematic collection and analysis of data; development of technology; testing of natural phenomena; and the dissemination of these activities by researchers on a primarily avocational basis". Citizen science is sometimes called "public participation in scientific research.
levitra online said...
Citizen scientists can help gather data that will be analyzed by professional researchers. The Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count, which began in 1900, is a good example. The American Association of Variable Star Observers has gathered data on variable stars for educational and professional analysis since 1911 and promotes participation beyond its membership on its Citizen Sky website. On BugGuide.Net, an online community of naturalists who share observations of arthropods, amateurs and professional researchers contribute to the analysis.
Great post! Crowdfunding science and cool tech efforts is one of those unexpected good things. A "Silver Swan?"
I was less than a year old when The Jetsons first aired, but because of Saturday morning re-runs I'm certainly familiar with it. I remember being jealous of Elroy for having an automated bathtub.
But yeesh, just because everyone of a certain age saw it doesn't make The Jetsons important, other than as a source of catch phrases and cliches.
Really, look at it. It's a shtick humor show . . . a 1950s sitcom with a little bit of 1950s office humor thrown in, set in a future based on the covers of Popular Mechanix.
The science fiction authors of the '60s were at least trying.
Astronomy is one of the sciences where amateurs still have a huge impact; witness the number of asteroids and comets found by people in their neighborhood park with a CCD camera and a 8" telescope. I am in big favor of getting kids interested in science. For several years I have been loosely working with Dr. J. D. Armstrong of the Institute for Astronomy here in Hawaii, our go-to (heh) guy for astronomy. He is in charge of outreach locally, and gets high school kids into internship positions, analyzing data from PAN-STARR to look for NEOs, looking at stellar formation, and searching for extrasolar planets. Recently, some of his students had their findings published in a peer-reviewed paper, a real feather in anyone's cap and something that will look great on a college admittance form.
Next month we will be hosting our not-quite biennial Night with the Stars, where we hook up one of the library's computers to a digital projector, make an internet connection to the Faulkes 2 meter telescope on top of Haleakala, and let kids in the audience 'drive' the telescope. Dr. Armstrong sets up the Faulkes connection.
This is where the next generation of astronomers begins.
Rodayda 111: latest extrasolar planet discovered by a Russian astronomer
I was seven years old when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and amateur astronomy was as close as I could get to the subject. The school systems were too slow at teaching me the stuff I wanted to know, so it also became my path to self-educate. By my 12th year I had worked through the astronomy books in the local library to a level I could grasp without more math and physics. By the end of high school, I knew I had to get a physics degree. By the time I reached age 30 I had all my graduate work done and had contributed to the knowledge of humanity.
THAT is what citizen involvement in science can do. The key word is 'involvement.' Some of them will become scientists. Some of the rest them will become science literate. All will realize that we are able to tackle the unknown and reason both forward and backward until we come up with ways to comprehend it. The more minds involved in this the more creative we will be.
Oh noes. We're gonna have another computer language holy war on the comment thread again, aren't we?
I can't wait. :-/
Agree about Tacitus' notions. Lots of ways to impart the gift of greater intelligence without giving all critters a human-like existential crisis... until we're wise enough to make the pain really practical for them rather than it being some kind of Karrank! (sp? pronounce? heh...) thing.
You are saying the pain we suffer doesn't have a practical reason with a large enoug reward to justify it?! Heh. 8)
Sorry. I'm quite happy to see all the suffering liberals, progressives, and conservatives. We've been making progress over the decades and if it take pain to do that, so be it. Contentment is over rated. 8)
> "weak measurement"
I recall reading about this idea a decade or two ago, pointing out that measurements could 'now' be done using photons so weak and light compared to the targets that very little change could be imparted.
Did it really take til now to do this measurement? I thought this sorting out about the meaning of 'Heisenberg uncertainty' had long been understood.
Joel Greenwood said...
Why Johnny can't code - after taking a decade long hiatus from programming, I wrote in a day or two my first program on an Android phone.
I'd be going along a street and see a house for sale. Open the app and I'd could look up all details of the sale (photos, price etc) using my GPS location and Android's web browser.
I wrote it in a web browser using App Inventor (run by MIT) which involved putting puzzle pieces together to form complete code fragments. It became mind-blowingly easy to combine the phone's components(gps, browser, touchscreen, 3G data connections etc)to do something that I wanted.
I'm convinced this is how people on Star Trek must program. And I'm sure smartphones are the predecessor for tricorders. At the very least, I believe App Inventor will bring programming back to the masses.
ALL of us can participate in medical science (well, those of us who are biologically humans. The AIs and the extraterrestrials logging in to see if we meet their Turing test are excused.) Just check with your friendly neighborhood university and sign up for a research study; some even have handy web pages you can check for your favored syndrome e.g. UW's Research Studies Seeking Volunteers. It can be fun being a guinea pig!
When I started to install Seti@home on this laptop (the one I'm typing on right now ... see it?) I discovered that the super-grid computing effort BOINC which includes SETI and much much more. Recommended!
A year or two ago I worked on a proposal for a MMORPG which was basically disaster planning, using real-world data & maps. The game was to develop, implement and test responses to disasters ... and do better than the other teams in surviving as an individual, community or whatever. Funding didn't follow ( I'm not sure FEMA really "got" games) but it might be fun and useful ...
If we uplift cats or whatever, how long before they decide to return the favor and uplift US? Yes, we have intelligence that will (probably) let us radically reshape their genome to give them an intelligence comparable to theirs, but what if they, equipped with that intelligence, pity us for lacking some quality that we don't at present appreciate? We are, after all, a bit clumsy and deaf.
More Bile!
Why Your Phone, Cable & Internet Bills Cost So Much
Also, enjoy this bit from Alan West: "My statement to the United Nations would have been, "The future does not belong to those who attack our Embassies and Consulates and kill our Ambassadors. The Angel of Death in the form of an American Bald Eagle will visit you and wreak havoc and destruction upon your existence."
Link Evidently, he thought the President shouldn't have commented on the "Innocence of Muslims" trailer when he spoke to the UN.
johnpeterjohn said...
Agree about Tacitus' notions..! Great post anyway!!
Dennis Jernberg said...
Participatory science the Kickstarter way -- I've thought for some time crowdsourced participatory science is an idea whose time has come, and I for one am overjoyed that it's finally become a reality.
As for that computer language: I remember learning three dialects of that original universal language: TRS-80 BASIC, Apple BASIC, and the original version on a timesharing machine. Since I wanted to write games, I supplemented my Apple BASIC with some knowledge of 6502 assembler. Since the Raspberry Pi is Linux-based, of course, there's several languages you can choose from, even FreeBASIC. However, I suspect the kids will end up choosing Python (included) because of the Pygame package. Python, interestingly enough, was originally developed out of an educational programming language called ABC designed as a replacement for BASIC.
Re Stefan Jones: The Flintstones was pitched as The Honeymooners gone prehistoric. The Jetsons was basically The Flintstones in space. The '60s were when the efforts of a few isolated SF visionaries like Philip K. Dick exploded into a full-blown "new wave" movement parallel to (and partly inspired by) the New Wave in film that lasted well into the '70s. Television didn't start getting interesting till the '80s. Sure, I grew up with The Jetsons, but it was Star Blazers, Galaxy Rangers, and Phantom 2040 that I watched religiously.
Ian Gould said...
Here's the thing about the Jetsons:
1. It's been established that the Jetsons' world exists in the Flintstone's future.
2. In the Flintstone's period, there are a wide range of nonhuman sentient species, some domesticated some wild.
3. In the Jetsons we see only one semi-intelligent nonhuman Astro. Astro appears to be less intelligent than the nonhuman sapients of the Flintstone Era and also seems desperate to ingratiate himself with the humans at every opportunity.
4. Besides Astro we see essentially zero nonhuman life - not even plants.
5. It's established in one episode that no-one visits the surface of the Earth due to high radioactive levels.
Given these facts it seems obvious that in a scenario resembling Planet of the apes, the nonhuman sentients of the Flintstone Era rebelled against their human masters and the humans responded with nuclear weapons rendering the Earth's surface sterile and exterminating most sentient life. the serving nonhuman sentients are obviously deeply traumatized and terrified of their human masters.
Next: what Goofy and Pluto tell us about the shameful abuse of the intellectually disabled in the 50
Disney universe.
I actually considered Pluto to just be a dog despite the fact the other characters were anthros. Nor is Goofy intellectually disabled. He's naive. Goofy is in essence the "gentle hick" trope who may not have the classical education of his peers but through hard work and effort is still able to thrive... and who often is taken advantage of by the more cynical.
No doubt this is why Goofy is depicted as a dog-anthro, while Pete is a wolf-anthro.
Just read something interesting in "The Economist" concerning the use of genetic testing to curb illegal logging - the company "Double Helix Tracking Technologies" in Singapore uses DNA testing to pinpoint where a piece of wood came from. Only problems are it currently costs $450 to test $45,000 worth of merbau, for instance, and there's only accurate global DNA maps for 20 species of trees.
The reason to use the testing? Well, it seems conservation laws are getting so fierce that even if a businessman doesn't realize the wood was logged illegally, he's still liable and could be jailed.
Romney:
"I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don't think she knows just how worried some of us were," Romney said. "When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no — and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she's safe and sound."
Romney using a state trooper's uniform to harrass people:
http://www.nationalmemo.com/did-young-mitt-romney-impersonate-a-police-officer-another-witness-says-yes/
I'm willing to file the uniform thing under "young men do stupid things". It ranks as less bad than his hair-cutting incident and maybe on par with Obama doing drugs.
I'd guess the airplane thing was a poor attempt at a joke. Romney does not deliver them well.
Goofy is clearly sentient. Pluto regularly displays intelligence considerably higher than dogs as we know them.
The parsimonious explanation is not that there are two distinct highly evolved canine species but that Pluto is Gofy's retarded brother, who they keep chained up in the back yeard.
iProds: How Foxconn keeps its workers in line.
Cite the quote, David. The followup I've read about that comment is that it was entirely a break-the-ice tongue-in-cheek joke. Romney is known to make them.
captcha failure count -- 2
It's paywalled but there's an article in this week's New Scientist I'd urge everyoen to read.
The article deals with the roots of confict in human society and "sacred values".
When people are asked to talk about important conecpts in their society such as "honor" or "freedom", they display a distinctly different pattern o brain activity than when asked to discuss other issues.
The emotional centres of the brain are much more active - and the reasoning centres are much less active.
Importantly, it doesn't matter what group of people you test.
We educated, liberal, rational secularists display exactly the same responses. Our cues are just different.
However, (and this is the point David keeps hammering away on) we are at least somewhat capable of recognizing this and seeking to compensate for it.
An interesting case study: a majortiy of Palestinians say they'd be willing to accept an Israel based on pre-1967 borders if Israel acknoweldged and expressed regret for Palestinian sufferign and dispossession. A majority of Jewish Israelis said they'd be willing to accept a withdrawal from most of the West Bank if HAMAS recognised Israel's right to exist.
while there are obviously real economic and security issues at stake, at the heart of the Israeli/Arab conflict is a refusal by both sides to recognize the vaidity of the "sacred values" of the other. Note too that the "values in question are not religious in nature, they relate to the validity of Zionism and to a recognition of the Naqba ("the catastrophe") of 1948.
"Cite the quote, David."
In four words sums up what I love most about this particular group.
Without a doubt I avow that the plane window thing could have been a joke. Hence my repeating it to you guys here and not up at the formal blog level. Though such things pile up. Likewise the trooper uniform. Not as bad as the bullying. But can anybody find any good deeds as a youth - volunteer work etc - to leaven the impression of a rather unpleasant fellow?
Given that most Mormon boys make Eagle scout. Why didn't he?
The scenario that Jetsons is the sequel to Planet of the Apes II... wow!
It's hard for me not to point to Romney's mission service in France and yell "VOLUNTEER WORK!"
Perhaps you meant something else inside different goal posts. Very well: inside his church youth group he would have been involved in several service projects every year for six years. In most congregations for four years of his youth, a young teenage boy will go on an assigned route collecting for the poor once a month.
Most Mormon boys categorically don't make Eagle. The rate is between 1/3 and 1/2.
I guess, as well, there's the anecdotal information. I've met one nephew, the owner of the roof-dog. He swore the dog had the best time in that kennel up on that roof. (Many breeds prefer to hang a head out into the wind...)
He said Romney doesn't read the political cartoons about that. And then there's an employee from the Olympics is a cousin of mine, who because of her experience working for him will hear no ill spoken of him. It's that powerful of a loyalty. Both attest to a genuine goodguy.
This will go over best if we acknowledge the good with the bad, I think. Romney is also a marvelously awkward campaigner who tailors his message to most of the people he seeks to govern. Hence, a moderate conservative-progressive in MA, and... that other thing he is now. And, as I've put it before, his faction is, tactically at least, downright noxious.
Which leads me to this:
http://taxfoundation.org/article/fiscal-costs-nonpayers
Pick it apart, everyone, if you please and if you want. I've found at least two correlation/causation problems and two conflations of percentages and raw numbers. And I know it comes from the Kochs but it's on the family's mind this week, so it's rhetorically more helpful if I can address it more from the points than just grimacing, "Ewww! Kochs!" I have to demonstrate why they're wrong.
I have never been perturbed by the dog on the roof. I thought it was unfair coverage. But doing your missionary work.... in PARIS? That's hell all right.
Let's be plain. Anne Romney says "we give 10% of our income to charity each year." That is the precise Mormon tithe. No more or less. What, no other causes... at all????
I think. Romney is also a marvelously awkward campaigner who tailors his message to most of the people he seeks to govern.
I'd say "tailors his message to most of the people he seeks campaign donations from." He seeks to govern the 47% write-offs, but to govern them in the interests of his wealthy donors.
It's not entirely Romney's fault, but we have a disfunctional democracy when politicians must satisfy their campaign donors first and their constituents a distant second (if at all).
Note that the scare tactics about Obama in 2008--that he'd oppress white Christians in the interests of fill-in-the-blank blacks, Muslims, communists--that was the Republicans doing their usual "I know you are but what am I?" projecting their own way of governing onto their opponents.
Hey, here's a plan for the next president who really DOES want to impose his radical values on the country, such as "taking all our guns away" or "imposing Sharia law". Instead of waiting for his second term to do all that scary stuff, just do it RIGHT AWAY. So he might not get re-elected? A fair price to pay, I'd say.
LBJ was a mean man, Eisenhower abandoned his WW2 girlfriend to preserve his political career, JFK made Clinton seem like a monk whereas Nixon and both Presidents Bush were almost certainly faithful to their spouses. Their service to America came from their policies, not their personalities, for the most part.
As a matter of political tactics and/or having a bit of fun, I don't mind mocking Romney for his "Windows On A Plane!" comment (soon to come to a theater near you!), while being willing to accept that it was just a weak attempt at a joke by a socially awkward rich kid. It's not as if an unfair joke has never been made against Obama!
I think we may agree that it the policies of the candidate and/or that of his backers that are so dangerously wrong ... and the same is true whichever candidate we support. But who can resist having a little fun anyway?
That said, let's not count a man who demonstrated in favor of the draft hanging out in Paris during Vietnam as doing charity work or even praiseworthy missionary work, not so long as Haiti, El Salvador, sub-Saharan Africa needed real attention. I don't blame him because he ducked (if I'd been a couple years older I'd have had to make some hard choices myself and I honestly don't know which way I'd have jumped) but I don't praise him either.
onward...
@rewinn, David, I can't countenance it.
I served an LDS mission in Switzerland.
LDS missions in Europe are not repeat not repeat not "hanging out". I like you both, but you don't have the first idea what you're talking about.
I'd invite you to try it for just two weeks, and not call you a coward if you balked.
And for whatever it's worth, the Church does have missions in Haiti, El Salvador, Sub-Saharan Africa. One of my congregation is going to Accra, Ghana in a few weeks for his stint. Another friend is in the Dominican Republic with his wife. Two friends are in the Amazon. Still another is headed to Cabo Verde. My parents returned earlier this year from the Philippines. Each missionary or his/her family brings about $12,000 to the effort. Most likely, my son will go in about 9 years and when he does we won't get to interact with him except through a weekly e-mail for the span of two years. And it will cost me $12,000 if he wants to go.
That's what I did. Looking back I'd never want to trade the experience for just about anything.
With respect to the attention Mormons *can* pay to suffering areas, the truth is, the Church has to negotiate the amount of missionaries each of these countries is willing to let in. They all issue visas, after all. And the most troubled ones are so violent that no American would survive it.
You don't have to praise Romney for it, I don't require that of anyone, for sure. But I won't leave you thinking that any Mormon mission is akin to any kind of vacation. It's a difficult job at best and a harrowing crucible at worst, all self-funded, performed in a sub-culture that attaches significant value to it, the same kind of esteem Americans used to heap on outgoing soldiers back in the 40's.
Thus, by definition, it's volunteer work. As a veteran of the experience I think the only formative difference is that you're not dodging bullets. In most places.
Let's be plain about that, too.
Rob I have Mormon neighbors who tell me about their missions to Africa. I know tha many such missions are hard work with repeated emphasis on good works for the poor.
I find it hard to view a couple of years in Paris while avoiding Vietnam the same way. But then, I am not making a big deal about this, either. Mitt has made his character clear enough that I do not have to go slumming for anecdotes to tout... though I will mention those that seem interesting from time to time, down here in the core community.
Paul451 said...
(I'll leave this here so I don't pollute the new thread.)
Re: Ian's brilliant deconstruction of The Jetsons.
I often thought that Bewitched was actually about anti-Semitism in the '50s, with magic as a metaphor for Jewish culture. Darren was an anti-Semite, he wasn't only terrified of his WASP neighbours/boss finding out he'd married a Jew, he also absolutely forbade his children from being raised with any knowledge of Jewish culture. Puts Endora's hatred of Derwood in a new light, no?
(I Dream Of Genie was, of course, about a free-love counter-culture hippy chick falling for a "straight". "Magic" was drugs. Hi-jinx ensued.)
Oops. I Dream Of Jeannie, of course.
He is in charge of outreach locally, and gets high school kids into internship positions, analyzing data from PAN-STARR to look for NEOs, looking at stellar formation, and searching for extrasolar planets..
Illustrating the depth to which science is permeating the culture of our next generation (and paralleling something I read on a blog hosted by an award-winning SF author), Jeph Jacques ponders human/AI friendship.
@Rob - I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't see either of us has introduced evidence sufficient to induce a change of mind as to any material issue.
Not dodging bullets in Paris strikes me as a pretty relevant factor as to degrees of harrowingness but the key point ...as I intended to imply but will now explicitly state ... if Romney had good policies I wouldn't care if he spent Vietnam smoking doobies with the Pope.
@rewinn -- Let's not forget that you and I are probably equally opposed to a federal Republican victory. There's no reason to apologize to me over this, it's nothing more than a correction to a misconception.
Mormon missions aren't Army service, that's true. But one shouldn't suppose that a boy born into the Church doesn't consider himself drafted into mission service. The pressure to go is significant, and during Romney's years it was inappropriately significant, as a one or the other kind of deal.
That still doesn't make it equivalent, but it's a distraction anyway.
ostrich ammo
http://www.politico.com/blogs/charlie-mahtesian/2012/09/webb-drops-the-hammer-on-romney-136858.html?hp=l7
@Rob - well said, sir. It is easy for me to forget that I don't *actually* know squat about the LDS experience. Perhaps it would be easier to remember if y'all Mormons were to adopt a more exotic appearance, something equivalent to the tall pointy hats and cappa magna of we Catholics ;-)
I'm glad you are here Rob.
I have no use for much theology, but the other values of the LDS are good values.
Adney Abram said...
As crowd-sourced inventiveness and science is essential to our fast-changing civilization - and its booming. You really have provide a great information. keep updating.
Mr Fusion? Hey, we all know that the big seller has got to be the hoverboard...
A very nice roundup. Another resource for citizen science projects is http://www.citizensciencecenter.com
Censorship, Indignation, and our Hopes for Freedom...
Why the Candidates Should (But Won't) Stipulate
Crowd-sourcing "citizen science," new products and...
Intelligence, Uplift, and Our Place in a Big Cosmo...
The New Modernism: Blending Science, Engineering, ...
No Record to Run on?
The Case for a Scientific Nation: Part Two
The Case for a Scientific Nation: Part One
Let a Million Topics Bloom
The Near Future of Manned Spaceflight

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
US20050262019A1 - Methods, systems and computer program products for performing customer account updates - Google Patents
Methods, systems and computer program products for performing customer account updates Download PDF
Jennifer Ebbert-Hughes
Barbara Olsen
Cynthia Searcy
AT&T Delaware Intellectual Property Inc
2004-05-24 Application filed by AT&T Delaware Intellectual Property Inc filed Critical AT&T Delaware Intellectual Property Inc
2004-07-13 Assigned to BELLSOUTH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION reassignment BELLSOUTH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: SEARCY, CYNTHIA, EBBERT-HUGHES, JENNIFER, OLSEN, BARBARA
G06Q30/06—Buying, selling or leasing transactions
G06Q30/0601—Electronic shopping
G06Q30/0603—Catalogue ordering
G06Q20/00—Payment architectures, schemes or protocols
G06Q20/08—Payment architectures
G06Q20/10—Payment architectures specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
G06Q20/102—Bill distribution or payments
A method for performing customer account updates. The method includes receiving a customer account from a user and transmitting account update options to the user. An update transaction is received from the user, where the update transaction corresponds to the customer account and to two or more of the account update options. A service corresponding to the customer account is modified in response to the transaction including a request to modify the service. Point-to-point protocol (PPP) logins corresponding to the customer account are updated in response to the transaction including a request to update the PPP logins. Provisioning corresponding to the customer account is changed in response to the transaction including a request to change the provisioning. A request to update an ordering system is transmitted in response to at least one of the modifying, updating and changing.
The present disclosure relates generally to computer networks and in particular, to methods, systems and computer program products for auditing network device configurations.
Computer systems that support customer accounts typically include a billing system, an ordering system, a customer data system and an operational support system. The billing system keeps track of customer accounts, charges that should be applied and the current balance associated with each customer. In telephone provider computer systems, the ordering system typically tracks requests for new service. The ordering system will interface with the operational support systems to provision customer telecommunication services and to assign telephone numbers to the customer. The ordering system also interfaces with the billing system to be sure that the billing is synchronized with what has been ordered by the customer. The customer data system maintains information about the customer such as name and billing address, activation date and account status.
These systems have often been developed and optimized for a specific purpose. For example, the billing software is optimized for billing and may not be efficient at interfacing with the ordering system. A customer account representative may be required to access several systems in order to make a relatively simple change such as updating a primary bill plan. In addition, these systems may be older and not able to easily handle some of the new types of service provided to telephone company customers. In many cases, the existing systems cannot process some of the more complex products such as digital subscriber line (DSL) accounts. DSL accounts often times involve layering several products with many different permutations.
Embodiments of the present invention include a method for performing customer account updates. The method includes receiving a customer account from a user and transmitting account update options to the user. An update transaction is received from the user, where the update transaction corresponds to the customer account and to two or more of the account update options. A service corresponding to the customer account is modified in response to the transaction including a request to modify the service. Point-to-point protocol (PPP) logins corresponding to the customer account are updated in response to the transaction including a request to update the PPP logins. Provisioning corresponding to the customer account is changed in response to the transaction including a request to change the provisioning. A request to update an ordering system is transmitted in response to at least one of the modifying, updating and changing.
Further embodiments of the present invention include a system for performing customer account updates. The system includes an update tool in communication with an ordering system. The update tool includes instructions to implement a method including receiving a customer account from a user and transmitting account update options to the user. An update transaction is received from the user, where the update transaction corresponds to the customer account and to two or more of the account update options. A service corresponding to the customer account is modified in response to the transaction including a request to modify the service. Point-to-point protocol (PPP) logins corresponding to the customer account are updated in response to the transaction including a request to update the PPP logins. Provisioning corresponding to the customer account is changed in response to the transaction including a request to change the provisioning. A request to update an ordering system is transmitted in response to at least one of the modifying, updating and changing.
Still further embodiments of the present invention include a computer program product for performing customer account updates. The computer program product includes a storage medium readable by a processing circuit and stores instructions for execution by the processing circuit for facilitating a method that includes receiving a customer account from a user and transmitting account update options to the user. An update transaction is received from the user, where the update transaction corresponds to the customer account and to two or more of the account update options. A service corresponding to the customer account is modified in response to the transaction including a request to modify the service. Point-to-point protocol (PPP) logins corresponding to the customer account are updated in response to the transaction including a request to update the PPP logins. Provisioning corresponding to the customer account is changed in response to the transaction including a request to change the provisioning. A request to update an ordering system is transmitted in response to at least one of the modifying, updating and changing.
Other systems, methods and/or computer program products according to embodiments will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art upon review of the following drawings and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, and/or computer program products be included within this description, be within the scope of the present invention, and be protected by the accompanying claims.
Referring to the exemplary drawings wherein like elements are numbered alike in the several FIGURES:
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system for performing customer account updates in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary process for locating account information in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present invention; and
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary process for processing account requests in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present invention.
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention include a customer account update tool that provides a consolidated front end to billing, ordering and operational support systems for handling customer account updates. These updates may include exception items that deviate from the standard customer account processing and may include billing corrections, changing service types and correcting point-to-point protocol (PPP) logins. The tool receives data from existing billing systems, ordering systems, customer data systems and operational support systems. In addition, the tool transmits update data to be written back to billing and ordering systems. The customer account update tool allows a customer account representative to perform non-standard customer account processing from a single interface and ensures that any updates made by the customer account representative are propagated to the existing billing and ordering systems.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system for performing customer account updates in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present invention. FIG. 1 includes a host system 104 for executing the customer account update tool. The system in FIG. 1 also includes one or more user systems 102 through which users (e.g., customer account representatives) located at one or more geographic locations may contact the host system 104 to initiate customer account update functions. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the host system 104 executes the customer account update tool and the user system 102 is coupled to the host system 104 via a network 106. In alternate exemplary embodiments, the user system 102 is directly connected to the host system 104. Each user system 102 may be implemented using a general-purpose computer executing a computer program for carrying out the processes described herein. The user system 102 may be a personal computer (e.g., a lap top, a personal digital assistant) or a host attached terminal. If the user system 102 is a personal computer, the processing described herein may be shared by the user system 102 and the host system 104.
The network 106 may be any type of known network including, but not limited to, a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), a global network (e.g. Internet), a virtual private network (VPN), and an intranet. The network 106 may be implemented using a wireless network or any kind of physical network implementation known in the art. A user system 102 may be coupled to the host system through multiple networks (e.g., intranet and LAN) so that not all user systems 102 are coupled to the host system 104 through the same network. One or more of the user systems 102 and the host system 104 may be connected to the network 106 in a wireless fashion.
The storage device 108 depicted in FIG. 1 may be implemented using a variety of devices for storing electronic information. It is understood that the storage device 108 may be implemented using memory contained in the host system 104 or it may be a separate physical device. The storage device 108 is logically addressable as a consolidated data source across a distributed environment that includes a network 106. The physical data may be located in a variety of geographic locations depending on application and access requirements. Information stored in the storage device 108 may be retrieved and manipulated via the host system 104 and/or via the user system 102 if portions of the audit software are executed on the user system 102. The storage device 108 includes application data utilized by the customer account update tool. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the host system 104 operates as a database server and coordinates access to application data including data stored on the storage device 108. Access to data contained in the storage device 108 may be restricted based on user characteristics.
The host system 104 depicted in FIG. 1 may be implemented using one or more servers operating in response to a computer program stored in a storage medium accessible by the server. The host system 104 operates as a network server (e.g., a web server) to communicate with the user system 102. The host system 104 handles sending and receiving information to and from the user system 102 and can perform associated tasks. The host system 104 may reside behind a firewall to prevent unauthorized access to the host system 104 and enforce any limitations on authorized access. A firewall may be implemented using conventional hardware and/or software as is known in the art.
The host system 104 may also operate as an application server. The host system 104 executes one or more computer programs to implement the customer account update tool. The processing of the customer account update tool may be shared by the user system 102 and the host system 104 by providing an application (e.g., a java applet) to the user system 102. As previously described, it is understood that separate servers may be utilized to implement the network server functions and the application server functions. Alternatively, the network server, the firewall, and the application server may be implemented by a single server executing computer programs to perform the requisite functions.
The host system 104 depicted in FIG. 1 is in communication with a billing database 110 including data from a billing system 120, an order database 112 including data from an ordering system 114, a customer database 116 including customer data and an operational support database 118 including data from one or more operational support systems. Communication may be via a direct connection or via the same network 106 described previously or a separate network with the same attributes as the network 106 described previously. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention the customer account data relates to telephone service. In these exemplary embodiments, the billing database 110 includes customer billing data such as information about the primary and secondary bill plans, registration codes and any promotions associated with the customer account. The order database 112 includes customer order data such as type of service, order state and installation type. The customer database 116 includes data such as customer name, activation date, service identification, PPP login and account status. The operational support database 118 includes information relating to telephone number assignment and provisioning telecommunication service to the customer.
The billing database 110, order database 112, customer database 116 and operational support database 118 may be implemented using a variety of devices for storing electronic information. It is understood the billing database 110 may be implemented using memory contained in the billing system 120 or it may be contained in a separate physical device. Additionally, the order database 112 may be implemented using memory contained in the ordering system 114 or it may be contained in a separate physical device. Similarly, the customer database 116 and operational support database 118 may 110 may be implemented using memory contained in a customer system and operational support system, respectively, or they may be contained in separate physical devices. The physical data may be located in a variety of geographic locations depending on application and access requirements.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary process for locating account information in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present invention. The process depicted in FIG. 2 may be utilized by a customer account representative to update a customer account. At 202, the user (e.g., customer account representative) initiates the customer account update tool and an authorization process is performed to check that the user is authorized. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the interactions with the user described in reference to FIG. 2 are performed via user interface screens displayed on the user system 102. Different users may have different levels of access to databases and functions within the customer account update tool based on their user identifications. At 204, the user enters value(s) for the search key(s). These values may include data such as billing telephone number (BTN), digital subscriber line (DSL) telephone number, PPP login, e-mail identification, e-mail alias and service identifier. At 206, the customer account update tool searches the billing database 110 for entries that match the search criteria entered in 204.
At 208, the matching entries are displayed to the user. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the information displayed for each matching entry includes the DSL telephone number, the BTN, the PPP login, the service identifier, the billing identifier, the customer name, the customer address, the billing status, and the status date. At 210, the user selects one of the matches and at 212, the customer account update tool displays additional account information relating to the entry. Additional account information may include customer information from the customer database 116, active billing information from the billing database 110 and/or current order information from the order database 112. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the customer information includes customer name, activation date, DSL start date, integrated fiber in the loop (IFITL)/DSL, DSL telephone number/BTN, service identifier, account status and PPP login. In addition, active billing information includes registration code, registration code description, primary bill plan, bill plan last update date, secondary bill plan(s) and promotions. Further, current order information includes order state, service, customer provided equipment (CPE) type, overlays and installation type. At 214, the customer account update tool processes the account request of the customer account representative. The processing of the account request is described in reference to FIG. 3.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary process for processing account requests in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present invention. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the user selects from swap PPP login, replace PPP login, release PPP login, change service and re-provision and these options are presented to the user (e.g., via a user interface screen). The user may select one option, a subset of the options or all of the options from the user interface screen. PPP is a method of providing remote access communications. It may be utilized to connect a computer to the Internet and to establish a session between a customer's computer and the Internet service provider (ISP). If, at 302, it is determined the user has requested to swap the PPP login, then 304 is performed and the PPP login of the currently selected account (the account selected in 210) will be changed. The service identifier corresponding to the PPP remains the same, but it is associated with a different, available, valid PPP login. The removed PPP login will be made available for another assignment. The customer account tool provides the user with a function to search for the other account and provides information so that the user can confirm the selection of the pair. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the minimum information on each account includes customer name, authentication phrase, account status and customer address. The PPP logins will be re-assigned without allowing them to be made available to other accounts. The customer account update tool will provide notification to the user of any conflicts causing accounts to be ineligible for the swap. The swap and provisioning will fail and give an error message/report if the user has attempted to perform a PPP swap on an account that has a static IP address. If the PPP login is already taken by other users, if there is an invalid number of characters in PPP entered for the swap, and/or if there is an invalid character selection in PPP entered for the swap, the system will prompt the user to correct and resubmit without delaying the transaction. Processing then continues from 304 to 308 where the primary e-mail is updated because changing the PPP login necessitates a change to the primary e-mail address. At 312, the update to the PPP login is applied to the billing database 110.
If it is determined, at 302, that the user did not select swap PPP login, then processing continues at 306. If at 306 it is determined that the user selected replace PPP login, then the current PPP login is replaced with a value entered by the user and processing continues at 308 as described previously. Otherwise, processing continues at 310. If it is determined at 310 that the user has selected release PPP login, then 312 is performed as described previously to make the released PPP login available for another assignment. Part of the process of releasing the PPP login includes validating the status of the login and requesting that the user confirm the release action. After 312 has been completed, processing continues to 314.
Referring to FIG. 3, if it is determined, at 314, that a change in service has been requested by, e.g., the customer account manager, then 316 is performed to display options associated with changing the service. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the options include: change registration code, change primary bill plan and/or associated promotions, change secondary bill plan and/or associated promotions. The user is presented with the current values of these items. At 318, the user selects one or more of these options and the change is processed. If the user selects change registration code at 318, then the customer account update tool provides a user interface for the registration code to be changed. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the user interface may include providing a data entry screen to allow the user to enter the new registration code, providing a user selection screen for the user to select the new registration code from a list of codes that include registration code descriptions, and/or allowing the user to proceed with the existing registration code. Once the new registration code has been selected or the old registration code kept, the system displays the following types of information: new registration code, registration code description, sales channel and consumer/business customer.
If the user selects change primary bill plan at 318, then the customer account update tool displays, on a user interface, the primary bill plans available for selection. Information about each bill plan includes information such as primary bill plan, primary bill plan name, bill plan description. If a new primary bill plan is selected, it is displayed to the user via a user interface screen. If the user selects change secondary bill plan at 318, then the customer account update tool displays, the secondary bill plans available for selection. Information about each bill plan includes information such as secondary bill plan, secondary bill plan name, bill plan description. If a new secondary bill plan is selected, it is displayed to the user via a user interface screen.
If the user selects change primary bill plan promotions at 318, then the customer account update tool displays, via a user interface, a description of the promotions available for the selected primary bill plan. The customer account update tool provides a way for the user to select a new promotion(s) and remove old one(s). The user may select no promotion, one promotion, some promotions or all promotions. Once the user selects a new promotion(s) associated with the primary bill plan, the new promotion is displayed on the user interface screen. If the user selects change secondary bill plan promotions at 318, then the customer account update tool displays, via a user interface, a description of the promotions available for the selected secondary bill plan. The customer account update tool provides a way for the user to select a new promotion(s) and remove old one(s). The user may select no promotion, one promotion, some promotions or all promotions. Once the user selects a new promotion(s) associated with the secondary bill plan, the new promotion is displayed on the user interface screen. Exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide the ability to apply a promotion in full, remainder or increments depending on the customer requirement as determined by the customer account representatives.
At 320, the change in service and associated billing information changes are displayed and the user is requested to confirm the changes. The user interface screen containing the billing information changes includes login identification, date/time of change, old registration code, new registration code, old primary bill plan, new primary bill plan, old secondary bill plan(s), new secondary bill plan(s), old primary promotions, old secondary promotions, new primary promotions and new secondary promotions. The actual data displayed will vary depending on the type of change made by the user and implementation requirements. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the user may enter notes about the billing correction activity. In addition, logging of the data displayed, along with the user id of the customer account representative making the change may be performed. Processing then continues at 322.
At 322 in FIG. 3, a determination is made about whether a provisioning change is required based on the changes made by the user in the previous steps or whether the user has requested a provisioning change. If a provisioning change is not required, then processing continues at 328. If a provisioning change is required then 324 and 326 are performed to determine what provisioning changes need to be applied and then to initiate the provisioning. Provision AA at 324 and provision IP at 326 include initiating the updating of the systems/servers with the provisioning information to allow customers to access the network. Provisioning actually sets up the desired service (Internet, WAN, LAN, etc.) via the network and servers, and allows logon access to the network. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention this is performed by displaying the provisioning data and the billing data to compare the provisioning needs. The customer account update tool then initiates the provisioning changes and any additional data needed to synchronize the provisioning data and the billing data. At 328, the customer account update tool creates a transaction to update the ordering system with any changes that have been made in 302 through 326. The provisioning information is automatically passed and the information is updated to the ordering system 114. It has already been updated to provisioning and billing. In order to create the updated transaction at 328, the customer database 116, the order database 112 and the operational database 118 may be accessed at 338 and 340. The resulting transaction is stored at 332 and the customer account tool initiates updating the order at 334 via access to the ordering system 114. The user portion of the processing ends at 330.
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention include the ability to create reports based on the data manipulated by the customer account update tool. A report on any transaction created at 328 in FIG. 3 may be created to track the updates made via the customer account update tool. The examples given in FIG. 3 of exception processing in the telecommunications industry is meant to be exemplary in nature. Other exception processing both within the telecommunications industry and in other industries is possible by utilizing exemplary embodiments of the present invention.
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention allow a customer account representative to perform non-standard customer account processing from a single interface. In addition, exemplary embodiments of the present invention propagate any changes made by the customer account representative to existing billing and ordering systems.
As described above, embodiments can be embodied in the form of computer-implemented processes and apparatuses for practicing those processes. In exemplary embodiments, the invention is embodied in computer program code executed by one or more network elements. Embodiments include computer program code containing instructions embodied in tangible media, such as floppy diskettes, CD-ROMs, hard drives, or any other computer-readable storage medium, wherein, when the computer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, the computer becomes an apparatus for practicing the invention. Embodiments include computer program code, for example, whether stored in a storage medium, loaded into and/or executed by a computer, or transmitted over some transmission medium, such as over electrical wiring or cabling, through fiber optics, or via electromagnetic radiation, wherein, when the computer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, the computer becomes an apparatus for practicing the invention. When implemented on a general-purpose microprocessor, the computer program code segments configure the microprocessor to create specific logic circuits.
While the invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the invention without departing from the essential scope thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the invention not be limited to the particular embodiment disclosed as the best mode contemplated for carrying out this invention, but that the invention will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims. Moreover, the use of the terms first, second, etc. do not denote any order or importance, but rather the terms first, second, etc. are used to distinguish one element from another. Furthermore, the use of the terms a, an, etc. do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced item.
1. A method for performing customer account updates, the method comprising:
receiving a customer account from a user;
transmitting account update options to the user;
receiving an update transaction from the user, the update transaction corresponding to the customer account and to two or more of the account update options;
modifying a service corresponding to the customer account in response to the transaction including a request to modify the service;
updating point-to-point protocol (PPP) logins corresponding to the customer account in response to the transaction including a request to update the PPP logins;
changing the provisioning corresponding to the customer account in response to the transaction including a request to change the provisioning; and
transmitting a request to update an ordering system in response to at least one of the modifying, updating and changing.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising transmitting a request to update billing data in response to at least one of the modifying and the changing.
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving search keys from the user, wherein the customer account is responsive to the search keys.
4. The method of claim 1 further comprising writing the data associated with the request to update an ordering system to a system log.
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating a report, the report including data associated with the request to update an ordering system.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein input to creating the request to update an ordering system includes order data, customer data and operational data.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein input to changing the provisioning includes billing data.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein the request to modify the service includes at least one of a change to a registration code, a change to the primary bill plan, a change to the secondary bill plan and a change to the promotions.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein the request to update the PPP logins includes swapping two of the PPP logins.
10. The method of claim 9 wherein the updating includes updating a primary e-mail and applying the updating to billing data.
11. The method of claim 1 wherein the request to update the PPP logins includes replacing one of the PPP logins.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein the updating includes applying the updating to billing data.
13. The method of claim 1 wherein the request to update the PPP logins includes releasing one of the PPP logins for reuse.
14. A system for performing customer account updates, the system comprising:
an update tool in communication with an ordering system, wherein the update tool includes instructions to implement a method comprising:
15. The system of claim 14 wherein the update tool is in communication with the ordering system via a network.
16. The system of claim 15 wherein the network includes one or more of an Internet and an intranet.
17. The system of claim 14 wherein the method implemented by the update tool further comprises transmitting a request to update billing data in response to at least one of the modifying and the changing.
18. The system of claim 14 wherein the method implemented by the update tool further comprises receiving search keys from the user and the customer account is responsive to the search keys.
19. The system of claim 14 wherein the method implemented by the update tool further comprises writing the data associated with the request to update an ordering system to a log.
20. The system of claim 14 wherein the method implemented by the update tool further comprises generating a report including data associated with the request to update an ordering system.
21. A computer program product for performing customer account updates, the computer program product comprising:
a storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for facilitating a method comprising:
22. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein the method further comprises transmitting a request to update billing data in response to at least one of the modifying and the changing.
23. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein the method further comprises receiving search keys from the user and the customer account is responsive to the search keys.
24. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein the method further comprises writing the data associated with the request to update an ordering system to a log.
25. The computer program product of claim 21, wherein the method further comprises generating a report including data associated with the request to update an ordering system.
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Owner name: BELLSOUTH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION, DELAW
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:EBBERT-HUGHES, JENNIFER;OLSEN, BARBARA;SEARCY, CYNTHIA;REEL/FRAME:014846/0951;SIGNING DATES FROM 20040519 TO 20040708


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