Patent ID: 7197491

Claim:
A method for searching for data in one or more heterogeneous data sources within a computer system, the method comprising: receiving, from a user, a request for data at a federated datastore, wherein the federated datastore comprising a plurality of datastores and at least one of the plurality of datastores is a Domino Extended Search datastore; selecting one of a plurality of Remote Method Invocation (RMI) servers to process the received request based on the load of the selected RMI server and based on whether the selected RMI server can satisfy the received request for data, said selected RMI server connected to one or more heterogeneous datastores; and providing to the user data corresponding to the received request from the one or more heterogeneous datastores; wherein the plurality of RMI servers form a server hierarchy; wherein upon receiving a request to add an additional RMI server, connecting the additional RMI server to an existing RMI server in the server hierarchy based on a number of connections of the existing RMI server; and wherein upon receiving a request to delete an existing RMI server in the hierarchy, deleting that RMI server.