Disclosed is a robust intelligent system control agent configured to
receive user job requests, submit the user job requests to selected
qualified clients for servicing, and monitor the progress of the
requests. The system is also configured with the capability of relocating
a system control agent from one location within a network to another
location within the network and for relocating a job request from one
client to another. This ability to relocate agents and jobs provides
robustness and reliability to the system, allowing the agent to move to a
different machine when, for example, its current host system requires
maintenance or other downtime. In order to facilitate the relocation of a
job request, the state of the request is temporarily stored by the agent
or by other means while the job request is relocated to another client.