Processing system

1. A processing system comprising:

a process request queue that corresponds to a process group and additionally stores an arriving process request addressed to the process group;

at least one processor that belongs to the process group, and that, upon being enabled to receive a new process request, retrieves a process request from the process request queue, and processes the retrieved process request;

a monitoring unit that monitors a process load of the process group, and that, upon determining through monitoring that the process load of the process group becomes lower than a predetermined contraction threshold value, issues a group contraction instruction to the process group,

wherein if the group contraction instruction has been issued, processors of a predetermined number within the process group become suspension targets, and wherein the processor as the suspension target stops retrieving a new process request from the process request queue of the process group, stops operating upon completing the processing of all the retrieved process requests, and is then excluded from the process group; and

further comprising a contraction instruction queue associated with the process group,

wherein the monitoring unit adds the group contraction instruction to be issued to the process group to the contraction instruction queue associated with the process group, and

wherein only if the process load is lower than a suspension target threshold value predetermined for the process load, each processor performs a retrieval operation to retrieve the group contraction instruction from the contraction instruction queue, and then becomes the suspension target if the group contraction instruction has been retrieved through the retrieval operation.

2. The processing system according to claim 1 , further comprising a recovery queue associated with the process group,

wherein if a process request that waits in a resumption-waiting state to be resumed from suspension is present among the retrieved process requests, the processor having become the suspension target adds the process request in the resumption-waiting state to the recovery queue to delist the process request in the resumption-waiting state from the retrieved process requests, and

wherein the processor retrieves a process request from the recovery queue with a priority if the processor becomes enabled to receive a new process request, and retrieves a process request from the process request queue if no process request is available from the recovery queue.

3. The processing system according to claim 2 , further comprising an interim result memory that stores an interim process result of the process request at an interim stage of a process of the process request,

wherein the processor having become a suspension target causes the interim result memory to store the interim process result of the process request in the resumption-waiting state down to the stage of the resumption-waiting state in a manner such that the interim process result is associated with the process request added to the recovery queue, and

wherein upon retrieving the process request from the recovery queue, the processor resumes the process using the interim process result stored in association with the process request on the interim process memory on condition that the process of the process request has been completed to the stage of the resumption-waiting state.

4. The processing system according to claim 1 , wherein upon determining through monitoring that the process load of the process group becomes higher than a predetermined expansion threshold value, the monitoring unit issues a group expansion instruction to each processor within the process group, and

wherein if the processor is the suspension target but is not yet suspended, the processor shifts from the suspension target in response to a reception of the group expansion instruction, and resumes retrieving a new process request from the process request queue.

5. The processing system according to claim 2 , wherein upon determining through monitoring that the process load of the process group becomes higher than a predetermined expansion threshold value, the monitoring unit issues a group expansion instruction to each processor within the process group, and

wherein if the processor is the suspension target but is not yet suspended, the processor shifts from the suspension target in response to a reception of the group expansion instruction, and resumes retrieving a new process request from the process request queue.

6. The processing system according to claim 3 , wherein upon determining through monitoring that the process load of the process group becomes higher than a predetermined expansion threshold value, the monitoring unit issues a group expansion instruction to each processor within the process group, and

wherein if the processor is the suspension target but is not yet suspended, the processor shifts from the suspension target in response to a reception of the group expansion instruction, and resumes retrieving a new process request from the process request queue.