Patent ID: 8589924

Claim:
A method for performing a service operation on a computer system that comprises a plurality of processing modules, comprising: receiving, at a resource manager for the computer system, a request for performing a service operation on one or more resources of the processing modules, wherein the request individually identifies each of the resources without identifying processing modules affected by the service operation; providing an estimated duration for the requested service operation; submitting the request to a configuration manager, wherein, for each resource in a set of resources for the processing modules, the configuration manager maintains a mapping that identifies one or more of the processing modules that are affected by a service operation performed on the resource; using the mappings to determine a set of the processing modules that will be affected by the service operation; receiving, at the resource manager, a second request for the service operation, wherein the second request identifies a set N of the processing modules that are affected by the service operation and includes an indication that the service operation will render unavailable M out of the set of N processing modules, wherein the set N comprises a number N of the processing modules and the set M comprises a number M of the processing modules, and wherein the resource manager does not maintain any information that identifies processing modules that are affected by a service operation on resources; and determining whether or not to accept the request for the service operation based on the second request and a planned future usage of the one or more resources for the estimated duration of the service operation.