Patent ID: 7418478

Claim:
A system, comprising computer systems configured to execute program instructions stored on one or more computer accessible medium, wherein the program instructions are executable to implement: a plurality of applications configured to operate in a distributed computing environment, wherein said distributed computing environment includes multiple computing platforms, and wherein at least one of said applications provides a respective quiescence application programming interface, wherein in response to invocation of said respective quiescence application programming interface, said at least one of said applications is configured to enter a quiescent state with respect to I/O requests issued by said at least one of said applications; and an application discovery manager configured to detect a respective presence of corresponding one of said plurality of applications and to store state indicative of said respective presence of said corresponding ones of said applications; wherein for each particular one of said a respective presence was detected, said application discovery manager is further and to responsively store state indicative of whether said particular application provides a respective quiescence application programming interface; wherein said application discovery manager is further configured to detect said presence of said given application and to determine whether said given application provides a respective quiescence application programming interface without dependence upon any request to initiate application discovery generated by said given application.