Request queue management

A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for communicating requests for work to be performed between a client and a server, the one or more sequences of one or more instructions including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• receiving from the client a request for work to be performed;
• storing the request in a queue;
• selecting the request from the queue based upon one or more selection criteria;
• if the request includes an attribute that requires human intervention, then not allowing the request to be completely processed until the required human intervention is satisfied;
• and
• once the required human intervention has been satisfied, providing the request to the server.

A method for communicating requests for work to be performed in a control plane, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

• receiving from a master segment manager in the control plane a request for work to be performed;
• storing the request in a queue;
• selecting the request from the queue based upon one or more selection criteria;
• if the request includes an attribute that requires human intervention, then not allowing the request to be completely processed until the required human intervention is satisfied;
• and
• once the required human intervention has been satisfied, providing the request for processing to a slave segment manager in the control plane.

A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for communicating requests for work to be performed in a control plane, the one or more sequences of one or more instructions including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• receiving from a master segment manager in the control plane a request for work to be performed;
• storing the request in a queue;
• selecting the request from the queue based upon one or more selection criteria;
• if the request includes an attribute that requires human intervention, then not allowing the request to be completely processed until the required human intervention is satisfied;
• and
• once the required human intervention has been satisfied, providing the request for processing to a slave segment manager in the control plane.

A queue for processing requests for work to be performed, the queue comprising:

• a storage medium for storing requests;
• and
• a request processing mechanism communicatively coupled to the storage medium and being configured to:
• store requests on the storage medium;
• select, based upon one or more selection criteria, a request from the storage medium to be processed;
• if the selected request includes one or more attributes that require human intervention, then
• determine whether the one or more attributes have been satisfied;
• and
• only provide the request to a recipient if the one or more attributes have been satisfied.