Patent ID: 7080075

Claim:
A method for mastering resources, the method comprising: within a system that includes a plurality of nodes that have access to a particular resource, establishing a mastery-eligible-set for the particular resource; wherein the mastery-eligible-set includes two or more nodes of the plurality of nodes; wherein the mastery-eligible-set does not include all nodes of the plurality of nodes; allowing the particular resource to be mastered only by a node that is a member of the mastery-eligible-set; and storing information that indicates which node is master of the particular resource; wherein the step of establishing the mastery-eligible-set includes monitoring accesses to the resource made by the plurality of nodes establishing the mastery-eligible-set based on the accesses; wherein the step of establishing the mastery-eligible-set based on the accesses includes establishing, as members of the mastery-eligible-set, all nodes whose access patterns satisfy certain criteria; wherein the resource is one of many resources that are associated with a higher-level construct; and wherein the step of monitoring accesses to the resource is performed by monitoring accesses to the higher-level construct.