Patent ID: 7953837

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium for maintaining persistent group memberships in a distributed computer system, the computer readable storage medium comprising programming instructions for: operating a distribution computing system with a plurality of processing nodes; running at least one group service program for maintaining groups on at least one of the processing nodes, where each group maintains application specific information for a collection of processing resources, whereby at least two of the processing nodes operate as a plurality of subscriber nodes for subscribing to at least one of the groups as persistent subscriber nodes; maintaining a persistent subscriber node list of persistent subscriber nodes after the group dissolves so that subscription information is maintained; dissolving the at least one group so that a number of members in the group is zero; and notifying the persistent subscriber nodes listed in the persistent subscriber node list, in response to a group being reestablished indicating that the number of members of the group is non-zero, thereby eliminating a need for the persistent subscribers to re-subscribe to the group after it has been reestablished.