Patent ID: 8527645

Claim:
A content delivery network (CDN) for assigning processing tasks, the CDN comprising: a first points of presence (POP) at a first geographical location that includes a first resource, the first resource being assigned to a first client, wherein the first resource includes a queue manager that: detects when the first resource is available to perform a processing task, monitors usage of the first resource for performing processing tasks associated with each of a second client and a third client over a time period, identifies a restriction that specifies a type of processing task to be assigned to the first resource or a geographical locale for performance of the processing task, the restriction specifying that processing tasks associated with the prioritized client are to be assigned over comparable processing tasks associated with the unprioritized client, the prioritized client being whichever of a second client and a third client was associated with less monitored usage, and the unprioritized client being the other of the second and third client, generates a query identifying the restriction, and transmits the query to a queue; a second POP at a second geographical location that includes a second resource, the second resource being assigned to the second client; a third POP at a third geographical location that includes a third resource, the third resource being assigned to the third client; and the queue, wherein the queue: is loaded into memory, includes a set of queue items, each queue item being associated with a client, and each queue item identifying a processing task, responds to queries from each of the first, second and third resources, upon receipt of the query, selects a queue item from the set of queue items based on the restriction, assigns the selected queue item to the first resource, and transmits a response to the first resource, the response identifying a processing task of the selected queue item.