Patent ID: 8051046

Claim:
A machine implemented method for managing caches in a system with multiple caches, comprising: causing, by a node associated with a cache, a data item in the cache to be written to persistent storage, wherein causing comprises: determining, by the node, whether the node currently has ownership rights to the data item, wherein having ownership rights to the data item means having exclusive rights to write the data item to persistent storage; upon determining that the node currently does not have ownership rights to the data item, sending, by the node, a write request to a master of the data item to cause the master to instruct another node that currently does have ownership rights to the data item to write a more current version of the data item to persistent storage, wherein the write request is a request to have the data item written to persistent storage; and upon determining that the node currently has ownership rights to the data item, writing, by the node, the version of the data item that is stored in the cache to persistent storage without requesting and without receiving permission from the master to write the data item to persistent storage; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.