Patent ID: 7882200

Claim:
In a grid-based computing system, a method of providing data for use by engines in providing computations, the method comprising: identifying, at a data provider director, a first data provider based on the first data provider being pingable in at least one of a same location or a failover location of a data requesting-engine; receiving, using a first processor, at the first data provider, a request from the data-requesting-engine for data; checking, using the first processor, a first local cache associated with the first data provider for the data; providing, using the first processor, the data to the data requesting-engine from the first local cache when the data is present in the first local cache; requesting, using the first processor, for the data provider director to provide for a second data provider in a preferred lookup location when the data is not present in the first local cache; receiving, using the first processor, at the first data provider, notification of the second data provider and forwarding the request to the second data provider; providing, using a second processor, the data to the data requesting-engine from a second local cache associated with the second data provider when the data is present in the second local cache; and providing, using a third processor, the data to data requesting-engine from a data source only when the data is not present in at least one of the first and second local cache so that the data is retrieved over the network from amongst a plurality of data providers at most once and network calls are minimized.