Patent ID: 6842789

Claim:
A method for assigning an identifier to a device within a distributed computing system, wherein the identifier is unique across the distributed computing system, comprising: detecting the presence of the device within a local computer system that is part of the distributed computing system; and if an identifier has not been assigned to the device, assigning an identifier to the device by, attempting to retrieve the identifier from a local pool of device identifiers within the local computer system, if the local pool is empty, retrieving at least one additional identifier for the local pool from a global allocator for device identifiers located within the distributed computing system, wherein retrieving at least one additional identifier from the global allocator involves retrieving a block of identifiers for the local pool from the global allocator, wherein if the global allocator is inaccessible, retrieving at least one additional identifier from the global allocator involves assigning a provisional identifier from the local computer system and wherein if the global allocator later becomes accessible the method further comprises: communicating the provisional identifier to the global allocator, if the global allocator approves the provisional identifier, recording the provisional identifier as a permanent device identifier, and if the global allocator rejects the provisional identifier, assigning a new identifier from the global allocator to the device, and assigning the retrieved identifier to the device so that the identifier can be used to reference the device.