Patent ID: 8239231

Claim:
A method for providing a service provider a ranked list of all available options implemented in a data processing system for guiding the allocation of provider's resource to accommodate the service request from customer(s), wherein the provider's resource comprises: a finite number of non-overlapping unit time slots that are arranged in temporal order so that one unit time slot can be temporally adjacent to one or two other unit time slots, wherein the said unit time slot is the shortest time duration that the provider chooses to allocate to customers; or a finite number of non-overlapping unit space slots that are arranged in one-dimensional, two-dimensional, or multi-dimensional spatial order so that one unit space slot can be spatially adjacent to one or more other unit space slots, wherein the said unit space slot is the smallest space size that the provider chooses to allocate to customers, comprises the steps of: estimating the number of adjacent open unit slots that are needed to serve the customer's request; checking the provider's resource database to identify all options of available slots containing at least the needed number of adjacent open unit slots corresponding to the customer's request; declining the service request if no resource slots are available to serve the customer's need; or calculating the fragmentation index (FI) for each option of available resource slots; generating a ranked list of all options of available resource slots based on the said calculated FI values; and guiding customer to select an option of available resource slots based on the said ranked list.