Patent ID: 6848109

Claim:
A peer-to-peer coordination system of distributed programs, services and data by using application programs in a network of computers where coordination servers (CoKe) are running which serve local software systems (LSYS), where shared objects are used as communication objects to exchange messages and transactions are used to realized communication, said communication objects being uniquely identified by object identification numbers (OID), and only processes processing a reference to a communication object are granted access to it via the corresponding local coordination server, with the local software systems being at least extended by functions for the control of transactions, for the creation, reading and writing of communication objects, and for the creation and supervision of uniquely identified processes, and with the communication objects being administrated by means of replication strategies, wherein all coordination servers have identical basic functionality for distributed object, transaction and process management, and taken together, form a global operating system, so that the network of computers operates like a single global super computer where the addition of new processes and sites is dynamic, at least some of the objects are updateable objects having a non-resettable logical time stamp and capable of storing data, wherein the updateable objects are coordinated by an optimistic concurrency control without utilizing explicit locks on the objects and further wherein the data of the updateable object is writeable on distributed peer nodes, the functions provided for the extension of the local software systems provide a transactional blocking read of the updateable object and the processes are granted access to passed communication objects where different consistency models are supported for an updateable object, and distribution strategies are provided for the administration of communication objects, with the application programs not depending on said distribution strategies, and which distribution strategies are selectable at least with respect to the recoverability or non-recoverability of communication objects and processes.