Service provider

About: Service provider is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 55107 publications have been published within this topic receiving 894381 citations. The topic is also known as: external service provider & internal service provider.

Query execution assurance for outsourced databases

Abstract: In this paper we propose and analyze a method for proofs of actual query execution in an outsourced database framework, in which a client outsources its data management needs to a specialized provider. The solution is not limited to simple selection predicate queries but handles arbitrary query types. While this work focuses mainly on read-only, compute-intensive (e.g. data-mining) queries, it also provides preliminary mechanisms for handling data updates (at additional costs). We introduce query execution proofs; for each executed batch of queries the database service provider is required to provide a strong cryptographic proof that provides assurance that the queries were actually executed correctly over their entire target data set. We implement a proof of concept and present experimental results in a real-world data mining application, proving the deployment feasibility of our solution. We analyze the solution and show that its overheads are reasonable and are far outweighed by the added security benefits. For example an assurance level of over 95% can be achieved with less than 25% execution time overhead.

The influence of angry customer outbursts on service providers’ facial displays and affective states

Abstract: This article explores the existence and extent of emotional contagion, as measured by facial displays and reported affective states, in a service failure event. Using video vignettes of customers complaining about a service failure as stimulus material, the authors measured the facial displays and affective states of service providers as proxies for emotional contagion. Following a two-step approach, service providers’ facial expressions were first recorded and assessed, revealing that service providers’ facial displays matched those of the angry consumer. Second, a mixed ANOVA revealed service providers reported stronger negative affective states after exposure to an angry complaint than prior to exposure. The results demonstrated that during a complaint situation, angry outbursts by consumers can initiate the emotional contagion process, and service providers are susceptible to “catch” consumer anger through emotional contagion. Implications for complaint management and future research are discussed.

Internet pricing with a game theoretical approach: concepts and examples

Abstract: The basic concepts of three branches of game theory, leader-follower, cooperative, and two-person nonzero sum games, are reviewed and applied to the study of the Internet pricing issue. In particular, we emphasize that the cooperative game (also called the bargaining problem) provides an overall picture for the issue. With a simple model for Internet quality of service (QoS), we demonstrate that the leader-follower game may lead to a solution that is not Pareto optimal and in some cases may be "unfair," and that the cooperative game may provide a better solution for both the Internet service provider (ISP) and the user. The practical implication of the results is that government regulation or arbitration may be helpful. The QoS model is also applied to study the competition between two ISPs, and we find a Nash equilibrium point from which the two ISPs would not move out without cooperation. The proposed approaches can be applied to other Internet pricing problems such as the Paris Metro pricing scheme.

Database Management as a Service: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract: Data outsourcing or database as a service is a new paradigm for data management in which a third party service provider hosts a database as a service. The service provides data management for its customers and thus obviates the need for the service user to purchase expensive hardware and software, deal with software upgrades and hire professionals for administrative and maintenance tasks. Since using an external database service promises reliable data storage at a low cost it is very attractive for companies. Such a service would also provide universal access, through the Internet to private data storedat reliable and secure sites. A client would store their data, and not need to carry their data with them as they travel. They would also not need to log remotely to their home machines, which may suffer from crashes and be unavailable. However, recent governmental legislations, competition among companies, and database thefts mandate companies to use secure and privacy preserving data management techniques. The data provider, therefore, needs to guarantee that the data is secure, be able to execute queries on the data, and the results of the queries must also be secure and not visible to the data provider. Current research has been focused only on how to index and query encrypted data. However, querying encrypted data is computationally very expensive. \emph{Providing an efficient trust mechanism} to push both database service providers and clients to behave honestly has emerged as one of the most important problem before data outsourcing to become a viable paradigm. In this paper, we describe scalable privacy preserving algorithms for data outsourcing. Instead of encryption, which is computationally expensive, we use distribution on multiple data provider sites and information theoretically proven secret sharing algorithms as the basis for privacy preserving outsourcing. The technical contributions of this paper is the establishment and development of a framework for efficient fault-tolerant scalable and theoretically secure privacy preserving data outsourcing that supports a diversity of database operations executed on different types of data, which can even leverage publicly available data sets.

Factors influencing the adoption of the internet

Abstract: The Internet has been given tremendous publicity in recent years. However, most research focuses on Europe or America rather on than Asian countries. This study hopes to contribute to a better understanding of the Internet phenomenon in Asia by examining the factors influencing the adoption and nonadoption of the Internet among organizations in Singapore. A survey was carried out among business firms to examine the benefits of adopting the Internet, reasons for not adopting the Internet, and the criteria for selecting Internet access service providers. The results showed that key benefits are derived from the global nature of the Internet, which enables access to worldwide information and the creation of a worldwide electronic presence. Nonadopters of the Internet are concerned about whether staff will waste time surfing the Internet. Both access speed and technical support are viewed as important criteria in selecting an Internet access service provider (IASP). Implications of the results are discussed.