Resolution of resource conflicts by reduction of systems to solve

Abstract

The present invention resolves conflicts in the computer system with one or more devices and one or more system resources and where each of the devices has an existing configuration and one or more acceptable configurations. The devices are represented as one or more objects corresponding to each of the devices. Each object has a move procedure and a fit procedure. The move procedure requests objects representative of other devices to move from their existing configurations, while the fit procedure attempts to fit an acceptable configuration of the object into the system resources. The objects are linked together using a tree structure. When a new or unconfigured device is to be added to the system, the apparatus provides a new or unconfigured object representative of the new or unconfigured device. The new or unconfigured object calls the fit procedure to attempt to fit itself into said system resources and, if a non-conflicting configuration is available from the acceptable configurations for the new or unconfigured device, to set the configuration of the new or unconfigured device to the non-conflicting configuration. Otherwise, the object communicates with the remaining objects to request remaining devices to select another configuration from their acceptable configurations until a non-conflicting configuration is available for said first device.