Patent ID: 8856206

Claim:
An article of manufacture comprising a computer readable device having code implemented by nodes in a network to perform operations at each of the nodes, the operations comprising: maintaining version information of nodes in the network, wherein the version information for the nodes indicates a message version number of messages supported at the node, wherein the nodes supporting one message version number can receive messages having that message version number; using, when operating as a joining node attempting to join a quorum of nodes, the version information to determine whether there is at least one common message version number among the nodes in the quorum the joining node is attempting to join, wherein the nodes in the quorum support different sets of message version numbers and all nodes in the quorum support at least one common message version number; negotiating, by the joining node, to join the quorum of the nodes; and joining, by the joining node, the quorum in response to determining that the joining node supports at least one of the at least of the one common message version number supported by the nodes already in the quorum.