Patent ID: 8266622

Claim:
A method for dynamically selecting a critical execution path in a network of jobs, the method comprising: receiving a network of jobs for execution, the network of jobs comprising a critical job having a completion deadline and a plurality of predecessor jobs that need to be completed prior to completing the critical job; determining a workload plan for executing the network of jobs to enable the critical job to complete by the completion deadline; including, in the workload plan, a planned start time and a latest start time for each predecessor job of the plurality of predecessor jobs; determining a critical path through the network of jobs by finding a path through the predecessor jobs with a lowest slack time; detecting, by at least one processor during execution of the network of jobs, whether a predecessor job did not start in time to meet its latest start time specified in the workload plan; and recalculating the critical path in the event the predecessor job did not start in time to meet its latest start time.