Abstract: In a cooperative processing system, a client sends bundles of padded messages to a server which receives the messages, processes them and deallocates the storage for each message piecemeal. A storage manager of the server handles integer multiples of some minimum granularity (n) of storage units, and allows storage to be deallocated in amounts smaller than the amount originally allocated. The client packages and bundles each message into an amount of storage equal to an integer multiple of the server storage granularity, before sending the bundle to the server via a communications transport. The server places the bundle into a single buffer, with each message occupying a corresponding portion of the buffer. Each message is then unbundled for processing in place by the server process to which it was sent, after which its portion of storage is immediately deallocated.