Patent ID: 7725900

Claim:
A method of assigning objects to processing units of a cluster of processing units, the processing units having storage capacities, the method being executed by a computer and comprising the steps of: storing, in a storage device of the computer, the objects and object sizes; sorting of the objects by size to provide a sequence of objects; assigning the objects to the processing units starting with the largest object in the sequence until a remaining storage capacity of one of the processing units is below the smallest object of the sequence, wherein the remaining storage capacity is determined by a difference between a storage capacity of the one processing unit and an aggregated size of objects being assigned to the one processing unit; deleting, from the sequence, the objects which have been assigned; determining, after assignment of the sequence of objects to the processing units, a processing unit having a largest gap based on the aggregated size of the assigned objects and remaining storage capacities of the processing units; dividing the largest gap with a minimum number of the processing units to which the objects have been assigned; calculating a first threshold value by subtracting a result of the division from a storage capacity of the processing unit having the largest gap; and reassigning the objects to the processing units starting with the largest object in the sequence until a remaining storage capacity of one the processing units is below the smallest object of the sequence, wherein during reassignment the remaining storage capacity is the difference between an aggregated size of the objects being reassigned and the first threshold.