Patent ID: 7409389

Claim:
A method of managing access to objects of a file system, said method comprising: facilitating, by a server of the file system, providing of an inconsistent state of a lock corresponding to an object of the file system; invalidating, by a client of the file system, one or more existing open instances of the object, in response to the inconsistent state, wherein existing references to the lock receive an error; requesting another open of the object, said another open to provide another open instance of the object; obtaining, by the client, in response to the requesting, a new lock corresponding to the object; and accessing the object using the new lock, wherein the inconsistent lock and the new lock are concurrently maintained in a client cache, until the existing references are dropped, and wherein at least one invalidated existing open instance and the another open instance are concurrently in an open state until the invalidated existing open instances are closed.