Patent ID: 8024432

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving an arbitration request from a client computer upon an occurrence of a cluster partition, wherein the cluster partition partitions a computer cluster into a plurality of sub-clusters, wherein a first sub-cluster of the plurality of sub-clusters comprises the client computer wherein the arbitration request indicates which of a plurality of coordination point devices the client computer is connected to and which of a plurality of client computers are included in the first sub-cluster; comparing a coordination point cluster membership of the first sub-cluster of the plurality of sub-clusters and a second coordination point cluster membership of a second sub-cluster of the plurality of sub-clusters; selecting, based on the arbitration request, to vote for the client computer to continue to be a member of the computer cluster; identifying a failed coordination point device of the plurality of coordination point devices; and communicating, to the client computer, the vote and a proxy vote for the failed coordination point device.