A system and method for managing licensed and non-licensed resources in a grid network is provided. A license server receives and processes requests for a license and determines whether a license is available and, if necessary, causes a new configuration to be created on a server for satisfying the request. A new grid node may also be created and configured to be added to the grid for creating additional capacity for grid processing. The configuration may be performed at a time prior to an actual need by the grid, perhaps due to a faulted node, and quickly brought on-line with a simple configuration update. The new grid node may also have a virtual IP address reassigned to quickly redirect processing from the faulted node to the newly configured node. Also, an external resource dispatcher may add new resources such as storage or processing capacity to the grid and may coordinate the new resources with the license server.