Patent ID: 7392335

Claim:
A method comprising performing a machine-executed operation involving instructions, wherein the machine-executed operation is at least one of: A) sending said instructions; B) receiving said instructions; C) storing said instructions onto a machine-readable storage medium; and D) executing the instructions; wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of: sending to a master node a request for permission to perform a change to a particular resource; wherein said particular resource is a resource that contains data from a database; wherein said master node is a node that contains a lock manager responsible for managing a resource object that maintains information relating to lock requests on the resource; prior to receiving said permission, performing said change to the particular resource while preventing said change from becoming permanent within said database; after performing said change, receiving permission to perform said change; and after receiving the permission to perform said change, ceasing to prevent said change from becoming permanent to said database.