Maintainable grid managers

1. A network comprising:

a plurality of computer systems;

a grid management computer for querying the plurality of computer systems for available resources provided by the plurality of computer systems; and

a plurality of manager services, each associated with one of the computer systems, the manager services handling at least locating, reserving, allocating, monitoring, and deallocating computational resources of the respective associated computer system;

the manager services, upon receipt of a command from the grid management computer requesting a resource from among the computational resources provided by the respective associated computer system, configured to:

modify a relationship between manager services in response to the command;

receive, from a grid management computer, a first application containing code for enabling the resource on the respective associated computer system to be used by a separate computer system, the first application having a first application class type;

determine whether an application having the first application class type is currently installed on the respective associated computer system;

install the first application onto the respective associated computer system, the installation reserving the resource and customizing the respective associated computer system to modify the behavior of the resource of the respective associated computer system, the modification of the behavior of the resource of the respective associated computer system occurring upon determining that a second application having the first application class type is not yet installed on the respective associated computer system;

log changes made during installation of the application, including modifications made to the respective associated computer system by execution of the resource providing application; and

revert the respective associated computer system to an original state including removing modifications made to the respective associated computer system based on the logged changes without restarting the computer system, upon determining that the resource is no longer needed;

wherein determining that the resource is no longer needed is performed by the manager services waiting a prespecified amount of time and then deinstalling the application if there is no additional request for the resource received within the prespecified amount of time.

2. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, from a grid management computer via a network, a message having a command for a service that handles locating, reserving, allocating, monitoring, and deallocating computational resources for an application running on a resource providing computer in the network;

modifying a relationship between the service and a second service in response to the command, wherein the second service comprises locating, reserving, allocating, monitoring, and deallocating computational resources for an application running on a second computer in the network;

providing, to the grid management computer, a list of available computational resources associated with the resource providing computer in response to a query for available computational resources;

providing, to the resource providing computer, first application enabling the computational resources to be used by client computers in the network in response to the grid management computer selecting the computational resources, the first application having a first application class type;

determining whether an application having a first application class type is currently installed on the resource providing computer;

installing the first application onto the resource providing computer, the installation reserving the computational resources and customizing the resource providing computer to modify the behavior of the computational resources of the resource providing computer, the modification of the behavior of the computational resources occurring upon determining that a second application having the first application class type is not yet installed on the resource providing computer;

logging changes made during installation of the application including changes made to the resource providing computer by execution of the serving application;

executing the service according to the serving application; and

reverting the resource providing computer, without restarting, to an original state by removing the logged changes made to the resource providing computer upon determining that the computational resources are no longer needed;

wherein determining that the resource is no longer needed is performed by the manager services waiting a prespecified amount of time and then deinstalling the application if there is no additional request for the resource received within the prespecified amount of time.

3. A computer program product stored on a computer-readable storage device, the computer program product having instructions operable, when executed by a processor, to cause a data processing apparatus to perform a method, comprising:

receiving, from a grid management computer via a network, a message having a command for a service that handles locating, reserving, allocating, monitoring, and deallocating computational resources for an application running on a resource providing computer in the network;

modifying a relationship between the service and a second service in response to the command, wherein the second service comprises locating, reserving, allocating, monitoring, and deallocating computational resources for an application running on a second computer in the network;

providing, to the grid management computer, a list of available computational resources associated with the resource providing computer in response to a query for available computational resources;

providing, to the resource providing computer, first application enabling the computational resources to be used by client computers in the network in response to the grid management computer selecting the computational resources, the first application having a first application class type;

determining whether an application having a first application class type is currently installed on the resource providing computer;

installing the first application onto the resource providing computer, the installation reserving the computational resources and customizing the resource providing computer to modify the behavior of the computational resources of the resource providing computer, the modification of the behavior of the computational resources occurring upon determining that a second application having the first application class type is not yet installed on the resource providing computer;

logging changes made during installation of the application including changes made to the resource providing computer by execution of the serving application;

executing the service according to the serving application; and

reverting the resource providing computer, without restarting, to an original state by removing the logged changes made to the resource providing computer upon determining that the computational resources are no longer needed;

wherein determining that the resource is no longer needed is performed by the manager services waiting a prespecified amount of time and then deinstalling the application if there is no additional request for the resource received within the prespecified amount of time.