Patent ID: 6862613

Claim:
A method for managing operation of a clustered computing system, the clustered computing system including at least a cluster of computing nodes and at least one peripheral device, wherein said clustered computing system is configured to interact with a user as a single entity, said method comprising: (a) determining whether one or more of the computing nodes in the cluster have become one or more non-responsive nodes; (b) determining a sub-cluster vote for a sub-cluster of one or more responsive computing nodes, wherein the sub-cluster represents a portion of the cluster that remains responsive; (c) obtaining a total votes for the clustered computing system; (d) determining whether the sub-cluster vote is at least a majority of the total votes; (e) initiating shut down of the one or more computing nodes within the sub-cluster when said determining (d) determines that the sub-cluster vote is not at least a majority of the total votes; and wherein said determining of sub-cluster vote includes soliciting a proxy vote from the at least one device using a reservation key.