Patent ID: 7930398

Claim:
A distributed computing system comprising: a communications network; an end terminal which transmits a job execution request message of a user to the communications network; a job scheduler, responsive to the job execution request message, activates a scheduling process and a provisional reservation process, said job scheduler determines, in the scheduling process, a resource and a job execution period necessary for executing a job on said resource based on contents of said job indicated in said job execution request message, and said job scheduler generates, in the provisional reservation process, a reservation request message containing said job execution period and a resource identity of said determined resource, and transmits said reservation request message to the communications network; and a resource proxy connected to said communications network for receiving the reservation request message, said resource proxy includes a schedule memory that maintains a time schedule for users for using the processes of associated resources, said resource proxy determines a scheduled period of a resource identified by said resource identity contained in the received message based on said job execution period by examining the schedule memory, said scheduled period indicating the time of day for starting the job on the resource and the time of day for ending the job, and said resource proxy makes a reservation of said identified resource according to said determined scheduled period, said resource proxy generates a private key, and transmits a reservation response message containing a public key to said job scheduler, wherein said job scheduler acquires a certificate electronically signed by said user from said end terminal in response to said reservation response message, said certificate including a copy of said public key and a valid period of said certificate based on said job execution period, and transmits the certificate to said resource proxy; wherein said resource proxy makes said reservation of said resource in response to receipt of said certificate from the job scheduler, and forms a combined set of said private key and the received certificate to produce a process credential for verifying the user when the reserved resource is activated during said scheduled period; wherein if the job scheduler successfully activates the scheduling process, determines the resource and the job execution period, generates a reservation request message, and transmits the reservation request message and the resource proxy successfully determines a scheduled period, makes a reservation, generates a private key and transmits a reservation response message, then the job scheduler formulates a job execution schedule for the resources, and if the scheduling process fails, a failure indication response message is transmitted to the host.