Patent ID: 7496782

Claim:
A method for operating a cluster of servers, comprising: detecting that an error condition has occurred in a plurality of servers, the plurality of servers making up the cluster, the error condition initiated in response to the clusters inability to meet a conventional quorum requirement and preventing any write operations from occurring on any one server of the plurality of servers and wherein the conventional quorum state requires a majority of the nodes to be healthy to have quorum; determining that a selected server of the plurality of servers is functioning correctly; executing a split command by a user to override the quorum requirement by designating the selected server as a full read/write replica of the cluster and forming a cluster of one server from the selected server, the cluster now having a stand alone server and a cluster configuration of one to one thereby allowing the server to be modified without use of a voting system; and assigning a workload of the cluster to the cluster of one server.