Patent ID: 8201173

Claim:
A method of selecting a pre-started job from among a plurality of pre-started jobs in which to perform a task in a non-uniform access computer system, the method comprising: receiving a connection corresponding to an attempt to perform the task; comparing information associated with the connection to information associated with the plurality of pre-started jobs; in response to comparing the information associated with the connection to the information associated with the plurality of pre-started jobs, determining a first pre-started job from among the plurality of pre-started jobs that was previously used to perform the task; and in response to determining that the first pre-started job that was previously used to perform the task is busy, selecting a second pre-started job from among the plurality of pre-started jobs in which to perform the task, wherein comparing the information associated with the connection to the information associated with the plurality of pre-started jobs further comprises: generating a connection signature that corresponds to the connection; comparing the connection signature to the information associated with the plurality of pre-started jobs, wherein the information associated with the plurality of pre-started jobs is stored in a job affinity table, and wherein comparing the connection signature to the information associated with the plurality of pre-started jobs includes accessing the job affinity table to obtain the information associated with the plurality of pre-started jobs; and determining whether at least a subset of the connection signature corresponds to information associated with a pre-started job among the information associated with the plurality of pre-started jobs.