Patent ID: 8468534

Claim:
A method for scheduling operations, comprising: maintaining a queue of to-be-executed operations, wherein the to-be-executed operations are executed in an order based on relative positions of the to-be-executed operations within the queue; receiving, from an operation requester, one or more first requests for execution of a plurality of operations; in response to the one or more first requests, placing the plurality of operations in a corresponding first plurality of positions within the queue; after the plurality of operations have been placed in the queue and before receiving one or more priority-change messages for the plurality of operations, providing, to the operation requester, information about operations, within the queue, that have been requested by the operation requester; wherein providing the information includes providing, to the operation requester, a current priority designation for each of the plurality of operations; after the plurality of operations have been placed in the queue and before the plurality of operations have been executed, receiving, from the operation requester, the one or more priority-change messages for the plurality of operations; wherein each operation of the plurality of operations has a second priority designation specified by the operation requester in the one or more priority-change messages; wherein, for at least one operation of the plurality of operations, the second priority designation is different than an initial priority designation; in response to the one or more priority-change messages that indicate a different priority for the at least one operation, changing the position, within the queue, of said least one operation; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.