Patent ID: 7818408

Claim:
A method of reconfiguring virtual interfaces on a cluster formed by a plurality of servers in a mass data storage system; wherein each server includes a port for interfacing to a computer network for communicating data service requests, each virtual interface is formed by an operative port which hosts an internet protocol (IP) address used in communicating the data service requests on the computer network, the servers of the cluster are interconnected in server failover pairs, the cluster includes multiple server failover pairs, each server is connected to at least one data storage unit by which to perform the data service requests communicated on operative ports attached to the server, and each server of each server failover pair is interconnected to the data storage unit of each other server of the server failover pair to enable either server of the server failover pair to perform data service requests with respect to the data storage unit connected to either server of each server failover pair; the method comprising: establishing two groups of operative servers of the cluster, each of the two groups including a different one of the two servers from each server failover pair; communicating status messages among all of the servers of each group which indicate the operative status of each server within the corresponding group and each port of each server within the corresponding group; establishing a list for each group of servers describing operative ports of each server of the group; recognizing a change in operative status of any port of any server of each group from the status messages; and transferring the IP address from one port of the one server with the change in operative status to another operative port of one server within the same group in response to recognizing the change in operative status, whereby the server to which the IP address is transferred is not the other server of the server failover pair which includes the server having the port with the change in operative status.