Patent ID: 7979441

Claim:
A data structuring method comprising: wherein a data management system is organized into a plurality of physically-dispersed regions, wherein: each physically-dispersed region of the plurality of physically-dispersed regions comprises at least one cluster; a given cluster of the at least one cluster comprises at least one node and a shared storage, and the at least one node receives at least one data stream continuously and stores the at least one data stream in an object-oriented data store; for a defined object property, maintaining an index tree for use in determining where a given object in the data management system is located, the index tree comprising: a root; at least one level of joins; a plurality of leaves; and wherein: each leaf of the plurality of leaves is associated with a sorted structure; a join above at least one leaf aggregates leaves that are in a given cluster; a join on a next level up in the index tree aggregates the joins of multiple clusters that belong to a given region; and a join on a next level up in the index tree aggregates the joins of multiple regions that belong to a given universe at the root of the index tree; wherein the sorted structure comprises a property value and an object global unique identifier; associating a key and a key value with each sorted structure in each leaf and with each join in the index tree; responsive to a given occurrence: re-computing the key associated with the given sorted structure; and re-computing the key of at least one join in the index tree; wherein the key of the at least one join is at least one of a cluster membership key, a region membership key, or a universe membership key; and responsive to a search request for the given object: performing a membership test on at least one key in the index tree to identify which of the multiple clusters may have the given object; and using a sorted structure to locate the given object within a given cluster.