System and method for altering the work definitions in an iterative parallel opportunistic work stealing scheduler

Abstract

The scheduling of a group of work units across multiple computerized worker processes. A group of work units is defined and assigned to a first worker. The worker uses the definition of the group of work units to determine when processing is completed on the group of work units. Stealing workers may steal work from the first worker, and steal from the group of work initially assigned to the first worker, by altering the definition of the group of work units assigned to the first worker. The altered definition results in the first worker never completing a subset of the work units original assigned to the first worker, thereby allowing the stealing worker to complete work on that subset of work units. The process may perhaps be performed recursively in that the stealing worker may have some of its work stolen in the same way.