Pattern Title: Leasing Authors: Prashant Jain, Prashant.Jain@mchp.siemens.de Michael Kircher, Michael.Kircher@mchp.siemens.de Primary Contact Address: Prashant Jain Otto-Hahn-Ring 6 81739 Munich Germany TEL: +49 89 636 48092 FAX: +49 89 636 40898 Abstract Efficient resource management is one of the key requirements in implementing highly robust and scalable systems. Over a period of time, resources which are not needed by a user but are not released can have a degrading effect on the performance of the system as well as lead to unavailability of these resources for other users. The Leasing pattern solves these problems by freeing the user from the responsibility of releasing a resource explicitly. The pattern describes how resource usage can be controlled and how a resource can be automatically released in a timely manner when it is no longer needed.