Patent ID: 7139925

Claim:
A method, comprising: a particular node detecting a node failure in a plurality of cluster nodes connected together to form a distributed data cluster having a topology order; the particular node updating local topology data after said detecting to reflect the node failure; the particular node determining between the particular node's previous node and the particular node's next node as to which one is the failed node; if the failed node corresponding to the node failure is the particular node's previous node, the particular node initiating a sequential propagation of a node dead message to other nodes of the distributed data cluster according to a first sequential ordering of nodes, wherein the first sequential ordering comprises the particular node followed by the next node of the particular node; and if the failed node is the particular node's next node, the particular node initiating a sequential propagation of a node dead message to other nodes of the distributed data cluster according to a second sequential ordering of nodes, wherein the second sequential ordering comprises the particular node followed by the previous node of the particular node; and the particular node transitioning to a reconnecting state to begin reconnecting to a new next node.