Patent ID: 8060885

Claim:
A method for scheduling execution of work units in a data processing system, wherein the method comprises: providing a configuration database including an indication of concrete resources available in the system for executing the work units and an indication of concrete relationships established in the system among the concrete resources, each concrete resource having a set of corresponding properties, providing a descriptor of at least one work unit to be executed, the descriptor including a definition of a set of formal resources required by the work unit and an indication of a set of formal relationships to be satisfied by the formal resources, the definition of each formal resource including an indication of a set of required values of corresponding properties, creating a query for each work unit, the query including a set of selection fields for each formal resource and a selection condition based on the required values of the formal resources and on the formal relationships, running the query for each work unit on the configuration database, the query returning an indication of concrete resources corresponding to the formal resources, and submitting each work unit for execution on a selected one of the returned concrete resources corresponding to each formal resource; wherein each resource is of one of a predefined set of types, for at least one work unit the formal relationships including a plurality of formal relationships to be satisfied in logical AND with a plurality of formal resources of a single type, the query including a different set of alias selection fields for each formal resource of the single type.