Patent ID: 8171028

Claim:
A method for dynamically managing persistent membership of a coordination group in a distributed environment, the coordination group including a number of sites included in a persistent membership, with one or more of the site including a database and a registrar, the method comprising: receiving, by a registrar of a first site that is a member of the persistent membership, a Membership Request including a server ID and a name for an entrant seeking to become a member of the persistent membership; sending, by the registrar of the first site, a Membership Change message to other sites in the coordination group; receiving, by the registrar of the first site, the Membership Change message in total persisted order; proceeding, by the registrar of the first site, with initializing the entrant database in response to the persistent membership being changed; modifying, by the registrar of the first site, the persistent membership for the entrant; responsive to the registrar receiving the Membership Request, disconnecting the registrar of the first site from the coordination group and inhibiting, by a distributed lock manager, updates to a first database, while cotemporaneous to the inhibition of the updates (1) the registrar of the first site is initializing an entrant database for the entrant and (2) other sites of the coordination group update at least one database in the coordination group; and reconnecting, by the registrar of the first site, to the coordination group after initialization of the entrant database.