Patent ID: 7451450

Claim:
A resource manager, implemented on a computer-readable medium, comprising: means for registering resources with a resource manager; means for receiving, from consumers of the resources, requests to reserve sets of the resources to perform associated tasks; means for evaluating whether the requests can be satisfied; in an event that the requests can be satisfied, means for reserving the sets of the resources on behalf of the consumers; in an event that all of the requests cannot be satisfied: means for determining which of the requests can be satisfied and reserving the sets of the resources on behalf of the consumers that submitted those requests; means for establishing at the resource manager multiple alternate configurations of resources that may be utilized to perform a task; and means for dynamically switching from one configuration to another configuration to perform the task, wherein the means for dynamically switching comprises means for temporarily reserving on behalf of a given consumer a union of resources to perform the task, the union of resources comprising: resources associated with the one configuration; and resources associated with the other configuration.