A method for managing a system topology of a distributed computing system comprising: • providing a network of clusters with at least a first cluster and a second cluster, comprising providing the first and second clusters with a full mesh topology, wherein, in the full mesh topology, all nodes within a cluster have bi-directional connections to all other nodes within the same cluster; • configuring the first cluster with an external gateway configuration of the second cluster; • distributing the external gateway configuration across at least a subset of nodes of the first cluster; • establishing a connection between all clusters from the network of clusters, which for the first and second cluster comprises: for each node of the first cluster, establishing a single outbound connection to a select node of the second cluster within at most two hops; and • managing communication over the system topology between different pairs of origin nodes and receiver nodes of different clusters with dynamic switching between an optimistic mode and an interest only mode, comprising: ▪ at an origin node of the first cluster when in the optimistic mode, transmitting all communications over the connection except interests corresponding to an unfollow-type subscription interest, ▪ at a receiver node of the second cluster when in the optimistic mode, determining an unfollow-type subscription interest in response to a received communication, and communicating the unfollow-type subscription interest to the origin node, ▪ at the receiver node of the second cluster when in the interest only mode, determining a follow-type subscription interest and communicating the follow-type subscription interest to the origin node, and ▪ at the origin node of the first cluster when in the interest only mode, transmitting only communications that correspond to an interest expressed in the follow-type subscription interest. • providing a network of clusters with at least a first cluster and a second cluster, comprising providing the first and second clusters with a full mesh topology, wherein, in the full mesh topology, all nodes within a cluster have bi-directional connections to all other nodes within the same cluster; • configuring the first cluster with an external gateway configuration of the second cluster; • distributing the external gateway configuration across at least a subset of nodes of the first cluster; • establishing a connection between all clusters from the network of clusters, which for the first and second cluster comprises: for each node of the first cluster, establishing a single outbound connection to a select node of the second cluster within at most two hops; and • managing communication over the system topology between different pairs of origin nodes and receiver nodes of different clusters with dynamic switching between an optimistic mode and an interest only mode, comprising: ▪ at an origin node of the first cluster when in the optimistic mode, transmitting all communications over the connection except interests corresponding to an unfollow-type subscription interest, ▪ at a receiver node of the second cluster when in the optimistic mode, determining an unfollow-type subscription interest in response to a received communication, and communicating the unfollow-type subscription interest to the origin node, ▪ at the receiver node of the second cluster when in the interest only mode, determining a follow-type subscription interest and communicating the follow-type subscription interest to the origin node, and ▪ at the origin node of the first cluster when in the interest only mode, transmitting only communications that correspond to an interest expressed in the follow-type subscription interest. ▪ at an origin node of the first cluster when in the optimistic mode, transmitting all communications over the connection except interests corresponding to an unfollow-type subscription interest, ▪ at a receiver node of the second cluster when in the optimistic mode, determining an unfollow-type subscription interest in response to a received communication, and communicating the unfollow-type subscription interest to the origin node, ▪ at the receiver node of the second cluster when in the interest only mode, determining a follow-type subscription interest and communicating the follow-type subscription interest to the origin node, and ▪ at the origin node of the first cluster when in the interest only mode, transmitting only communications that correspond to an interest expressed in the follow-type subscription interest.