Patent ID: 7194518

Claim:
A tangible computer readable medium having stored thereon an arbitration object data structure accessible by a computer, the arbitration object data structure comprising: an identifier field containing an identifier for an arbitration object, wherein arbitrations on an entity associated with the identifier are managed by the arbitration object identified by the identifier field; an arbitration state field containing data representing a state for the arbitration object identified by the identifier field; a currently executing proposal state field containing data representing a state for a currently executing proposal managed by the arbitration object identified by the identifier field; a reference count field containing data representing a count of references to the arbitration object identified by the identifier field; and an arbitration cycle management data structure containing data representing a state of an arbitration managed by the arbitration object identified by the identifier field, wherein the arbitration cycle management data structure comprises: a sent proposals field containing data representing a remote node to which the arbitration object identified by the identifier field sent a proposal message; a received responses field containing data representing a remote node from which the arbitration object identified by the identifier field received a response message; an expected proposals field containing data representing a remote node from which the arbitration object identified by the identifier field is expecting a proposal message; a received proposals field containing data representing a remote node from which the arbitration object identified by the identifier field received a proposal message; a current cycle proposals field containing data representing proposal messages for the arbitration managed by the arbitration object identified by the identifier field; a current closure message field containing data representing a closure message for the arbitration managed by the arbitration object identified by the identifier field; a current closure node field containing data representing a remote node that sent the closure message identified in the current closure message field; an unprocessed proposals queue containing data representing a proposal waiting to be processed by the arbitration object identified by the identifier field; and an arbitrated proposals queue containing data representing a proposal waiting to be applied to the entity as a result of the arbitration managed by the arbitration object identified by the identifier field.