Patent ID: 8307028

Claim:
At a computer system including one or more processors and system memory, a method for routing a namespace registration request from a resource provider providing a resource to an appropriate namespace manager that manages a namespace branch corresponding to the resource, the method comprising: an act of a particular namespace manager receiving a namespace registration request from a resource provider to register a resource as a namespace branch within a namespace tree, the namespace tree defining an arrangement of available resources via a plurality of namespace branches, each namespace branch being associated with at least one corresponding namespace manager, the namespace registration request including a namespace identifier that identifies the resource within one of the plurality of namespace branches, the namespace identifier comprising a scheme portion that identifies a scheme type of the namespace identifier and a path portion identifying a path to the resource within the namespace tree; the particular namespace manager being included in a plurality of namespace managers that have formed federating relationships with one another to exchange namespace information, each namespace manager assigned a unique numeric identifier; an act of the particular namespace manager generating an at least one-way equivalent numeric identification value for the resource based on the namespace identifier, including generating the at least one-way equivalent numeric identification value based on a combination of at least the scheme portion of the namespace identifier along with at least one part of the path portion of the namespace identifier; an act of the particular namespace manager sending the namespace registration request to a destination namespace manager having an identifier that is numerically closer to the at least one-way equivalent numeric identification value than other identifiers of other namespace managers in the plurality of namespace managers; and an act of associating the destination namespace manager with the namespace branch.