Dynamic Computational Resource Allocation

A method for performing a distributed computation on a computing system using computational resources dynamically allocated using a computational resource manager includes storing information specifying quantities of computational resources associated with respective ones of a number of program portions of the program, where the program portions perform successive transformations of data and each program portion uses computational resources granted by the computational resource manager enabling computation associated with that program portion to be performed in the computing system, requesting a first quantity of computational resources associated with a first program portion of the number of program portions from the computational resource manager, receiving a second quantity of computational resources from the computational resource manager, less than the requested first quantity of computational resources, performing computation associated with the first portion of the program using the second quantity of computational resources, while performing the computation associated with the first portion of the program using the second quantity of computational resources, receiving an additional quantity of computational resources from the computational resource manager, and performing an additional computation associated with the first portion of the program using the additional quantity of computational resources while performing the computation associated with the first portion using the second quantity of computational resources.