Method for facilitating network external computing assistance

Abstract

There is provided a method for providing pricing information about a potential migration of a network computing task. The method includes the step of providing a provider availability set, identifying a price qualified set for each cloud service provider, and displaying the information about each cloud service provider and its pricing via a user interface. The price qualified set includes each cloud service provider: (a) whose price for performing the task complies with a price acceptability criteria or (b) that has a respective price proposal associated therewith reflecting a price for engaging the cloud service provider to perform the task in lieu of the task being performed by the network.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method for providing pricing information about a potential migration of a network computing task, the method comprising:
 providing a provider availability set, wherein the set includes those cloud service providers who are deemed capable of performing the network computing task in lieu of the task being performed by the network;   with respect to those cloud service providers in the availability set, identifying a price qualified set each member of which is a cloud service provider: (a) whose price for performing the task complies with a price acceptability criteria or (b) that has a respective price proposal associated therewith reflecting a price for engaging the cloud service provider to perform the task in lieu of the task being performed by the network, the step of identifying a price qualified set including evaluating selected operational relationships between assets of the network to determine the scope and extent of computing services that would need to be provided by each cloud service provider in the availability set in the event that the respective cloud service provider were to perform the network computing task in lieu of the task being performed by the network, the identifying the price qualified set including determining dependencies between those respective assets of the network that perform the network computing tasks; and   displaying the information about each cloud service provider and its pricing via a user interface.   
     
     
         2 - 20 . (canceled) 
     
     
         21 . A method for providing pricing information for migration of at least one network computing task, the method comprising:
 identifying one or more cloud service providers for performing the at least one network computing task in lieu of the at least one networking computing task being performed by the network, wherein the identifying the one or more cloud service providers includes evaluating selected operational relationships between assets of the network to determine the scope and extent of computing services to be provided by the one or more cloud service providers in the event that the one or more cloud service providers were to perform the at least one network computing task;   identifying a price of the one or more network providers for performing the at least one networking computing task, the identifying the price including determining dependencies between those respective assets of the network performing the at least one network computing task and determining the computing resources of the one or more cloud service providers required to perform the at least one networking computing task; and   displaying the information about the one or more cloud service providers and pricing via a user interface.