Patent ID: 7533163

Claim:
A method for starting a group of enterprise servers belonging to a cluster of enterprise servers, the method comprising: registering modifications to configuration data in a hierarchical data object, the configuration data defining a cluster of enterprise servers, the cluster having a plurality of groups of enterprise servers and a central database accessible to the plurality of groups of enterprise servers, the configuration data in the hierarchical data object stored within the central database, and wherein the hierarchical data object comprises a cluster data object at the root of the hierarchical data object, the cluster data object including: a global settings object containing global configuration data associated with all enterprise servers in the plurality of groups of enterprise servers in the cluster, and an instance settings object containing server-specific configuration data associated with a specific enterprise server in a group in the plurality of groups of enterprise servers in the cluster, the server-specific configuration data including server layout information uniquely identifying each specific enterprise server in the group and/or parameters associated with each specific enterprise server in the group, receiving, a notification that modifications to the configuration data have been registered; comparing binaries configuration data stored within a local file system of each enterprise server with the modified configuration data in the hierarchical data object stored within the central database to identify any binaries and/or configuration settings in the configuration data stored within the local file system which are out-of-date as compared to the binaries and/or configuration settings in the modified configuration data in the hierarchical data object related to the cluster and stored within the central database; if the binaries and/or configuration settings in the configuration data stored within the local file system are out-of-date as compared to the binaries and/or configuration settings in the modified configuration data in the hierarchical data object related to the cluster and stored within the central database, then updating the binaries and/or configuration settings in the configuration data stored within the local file system from the binaries and/or configuration settings in the modified configuration data in the hierarchical data object related to the cluster and stored within the central database prior to starting each enterprise server in a group of enterprise servers; and starting each enterprise server in the group of enterprise servers using the updated binaries and/or configuration settings in the configuration data stored within the local file system.