Resource provisioning for electronic books

Abstract

A method for provisioning IT resources includes receiving a signal from an e-book reading device indicating that a user of the e-book reading device is approaching a practical procedure section within an e-book being read by the user on the e-book reading device. The practical procedure section includes an exercise to be performed by the user pertaining to the subject matter of the e-book. What IT resources are needed for the user to perform the exercise are determined. The needed IT resources are provisioned such that the IT resources that the needed IT resources are available when the user is ready to perform the exercise.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system for provisioning IT resources, comprising:
 an e-book reading device receiving an e-book from an online content store, the e-book being embedded with instructions for determining when IT resources are to be provisioned for permitting a user of the e-book reading device to perform an exercise using the provisioned IT resources, the e-book reading device using the embedded instructions, during a displaying of the e-book, for invoking the provisioning of the IT resources in accordance with the embedded instructions;   a provisioning server for receiving a message from the e-book reading device indicating that the IT resources are to be provisioned and for provisioning the IT resources in accordance with the received message; and   a shared IT infrastructure, accessible to the reader of the e-book, within which the IT resources are provisioned.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the e-book reading device is a dedicated e-book reading device, a tablet computer, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, or a smartphone. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the exercise performed using the provisioned IT resources pertains to subject matter of the e-book. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the e-book reading device includes a display panel and the instructions for determining when IT resources are to be provisioned embedded within the e-book provide that provisioning of the IT resources are to be invoked after text surrounding an anchor point included within the e-book is rendered on the display panel. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the online content store receives the instructions for determining when IT resources are to be provisioned and embeds the instructions into the e-book. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the IT resources include one or more servers for providing one or more cloud-based services. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the IT resources include one or more servers hosting one or more virtual machines for providing one or more cloud-based services.