Patent ID: 8589560

Claim:
A computer implemented method for assembling detailed user replica placement views in a distributed computing system, the method comprising: identifying an original distribution of replicas for a group of users, the original distribution including at least one view corresponding to an assignment of all a user's replicas a combination of clusters; identifying a desired distribution of replicas of the group of users, the desired distribution corresponding to an assignment of one user replica to one cluster; determining detailed user replica views for the group of users based on the original distribution and the desired distribution; and allocating resources according to the detailed user replica views for the group, wherein determining the detailed user replica views for the group of users comprises: for each original user data replica view in the original distribution: determining whether the original user replica view needs to be reassigned based on whether the original user replica view covers all topoff clusters and locations and whether the shared-fate clusters and location in the view are within the budget set by the user replica distribution; if both conditions are not satisfied determining a new user data replica view and a moving cost for reassigning the original user data replica view to the determined new user data replica view; and reassigning the original user data replica view to the determined new user data replica view if the moving cost is equal to a minimum value.