Patent ID: 7698414

Claim:
A storage medium storing program instructions executable by a plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of nodes is segmented into a plurality of realms, wherein each realm includes a subset of the plurality of nodes, wherein the plurality of realms includes a first realm including a first node of the plurality of nodes and a second realm including a second node and third node of the plurality of nodes, wherein a first replica of a file is stored on the first node in the first realm, wherein no replicas of the file are stored on any of the nodes in the second realm; wherein the program instructions are executable by the second node in the second realm to create a location-independent address for monitoring read requests for the file by nodes in the second realm; wherein the program instructions are executable by the third node in the second realm to send a read request message requesting to read from the file to the location-independent address; wherein the program instructions are further executable by the second node in the second realm to: update stored statistical information regarding read accesses for the file by nodes in the second realm in response to receiving the read request message in order to indicate that a new read request for the file was received; forward the read request message to the first node in the first realm; wherein the program instructions are executable by the first node in the first realm to respond to the read request message by returning requested data from the first replica of the file stored on the first node to the third node in the second realm.