Patent ID: 7325046

Claim:
A method of managing processing groups of a shared nothing distributed computing environment, said method comprising: requesting via a request by a prospective member to join a processing group of a shared nothing distributed computing environment, said request including a sequence number indicating a version of the processing group, wherein the shared nothing distributed computing environment is an environment with a particular system architecture wherein only one processing node is connected to a given disk; determining whether the prospective member can join the processing group, said determining employing the sequence number, wherein the determining comprises comparing by said prospective member the sequence number in the request with a current group sequence number to determine if the join of the prospective member to the processing group should continue; joining the processing group by the prospective member, in response at least in part to the determining indicating that the prospective member can join the processing group; and wherein the joining comprises automatically reinitializing state of the prospective member responsive to the comparing indicating that the sequence number in the request is less than the current group sequence number, the reinitializing making a state of the prospective member consistent with a state of an existing member of the processing group, and thereafter, proceeding with the joining by the prospective member.