Patent ID: 7752310

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program for managing reservation of IT resources, the program causing a computer to function as: a reservation data repository storing reservation records of IT resources; an IT resource finder, responsive to a reservation request specifying a desired reservation period, that finds IT resources available for reservation in the specified reservation period by consulting the reservation data repository; a vacant period finder that finds a plurality of continuous vacant periods with equal lengths, each of which contains the entire specified reservation period, while counting the number of IT resources available over the individual vacant period that is found, based on the reservation records of each IT resource that the IT resource finder has found; an idlest period selector that selects one of the found vacant periods that offers the largest number of available IT resources; an IT resource selector that selects, for reservation to serve the reservation request, an IT resource whose vacant period coincides with the selected vacant period, wherein: there are a plurality of IT resources whose vacant periods coincide with the selected vacant period; the IT resource selecting calculates a hypothetical vacancy duration of each of the IT resources, assuming that said each IT resource is reserved for the specified reservation period and that an existing reservation preceding or following the specified reservation period is canceled; and the IT resource selecting selects an IT resource with a minimum hypothetical vacancy duration for reservation; and a reservation registration processor that registers the selected IT resource with the reservation data repository as determined by the IT resource selector.