How to implement Unix queue?

[Jim Dahlberg]

At work, we are experiencing a performance problem on our Sun 4 while
running a logic synthesis program.  We have three teams developing three
ASIC chips.  Often-times each team will submit 1-3 batch synthesis jobs at
the same time, at which time the Sun proceeds to get almost nothing done.
I assume it is thrashing.

What we were wondering, is if it would be possible to write a script or C
program which would implement a queue for submitting batch jobs to.  The
queue program would run only 2 or 3 of the jobs submitted to it at any given
time.  Whenever one job finished, it would submit the next one in the queue.

Does such a program exist in the public domain, or does unix have some
such feature built-in.  I guess it would be something like a print queue.

Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

Jim Dahlberg

	jim_d at cimcor.mn.org