A physical security system is described comprising a simplified method for selection of a compute node from a cluster of compute nodes with which to assign a role or acquire a service. The method determines a scalar priority value for compute nodes in the cluster, and allows selection of a compute node by simply choosing the highest priority scalar value. Scalar priority values may be determined by one or more of: a compute node license type, capacity limits, a hardware capability, a software capability, and a current node load.