Patent ID: 8732346

Claim:
In a distributed computing system comprising a plurality of nodes, a method of coordinating methods of I/O access to a shared data store, the method comprising: at a node, in a distributed system comprising a plurality of nodes, performing one or more I/O operations on the shared data store using direct I/O access mode on a virtual data container, wherein direct I/O access mode comprises performing I/O operations directly from the node to the shared data store including not having an owner node perform the I/O operation on the shared data store, wherein the owner node is a different node than the node doing the direct I/O operation, and wherein the owner node accesses the shared data store using a local data container; determining that one or more subsequent I/O operations should be performed using redirected I/O access mode, where I/O operations are directed through a centralized node; indicating to other nodes in the plurality of nodes in the distributed system to switch from direct I/O access mode to redirected I/O access mode, and where after, as a result of indicating to other nodes in the plurality of nodes in the distributed system to switch from direct I/O access mode to redirected I/O access mode, at least one node that was previously performing one or more I/O operations on the shared data store using direct I/O access mode on a virtual data container switches to using redirected I/O access mode, where I/O operations are directed through a centralized node different than the at least one node for performing I/O operations.