Patent ID: 7558883

Claim:
A method comprising: synchronizing multiple devices in a distributed computing system when two or more of said multiple devices assign a same proposal number to two or more proposals by: if the distributed computing system has a number of said multiple devices that is greater than three times a number of failures tolerated by the distributed computing system, enabling direct communication of said multiple devices one to another and with client devices in the distributed computing system, such that said multiple devices are synchronized without designating a leader of said multiple devices that coordinates said proposals and voting to achieve the synchronizing; determining if a majority of a quorum of said multiple devices voted for a particular one of said two or more proposals, wherein a size of the quorum is equal to a minimum number of operational devices defined as a number said multiple devices in the distributed computing system minus a number of failures tolerated by the distributed computing system; submitting the particular one of said two or more proposals to remaining said multiple devices that did not vote for the particular said proposal; and if more of said multiple devices fail than the number of failures tolerated by the distributed computing system, performing the determining and submitting by a leader of said multiple devices.