Patent ID: 7743167

Claim:
A method for servicing requests in a dynamic cluster comprising: receiving, by a first replica of a first plurality of replicas in the dynamic cluster, a first request comprising a first membership label from a client, wherein the first request comprises an object key and the object key comprises an obsolete object reference, wherein the client stores the first membership label and a first cluster list corresponding to the first membership label, and wherein the first cluster list comprises identifiers of the first plurality of replicas; identifying a reference factory corresponding to the object key; obtaining an object reference template from the reference factory; updating the obsolete object reference using the object reference template to create an updated object reference; determining, by the first replica, whether the first membership label is obsolete; and sending, by the first replica to the client, a second membership label and a second cluster list corresponding to the second membership label when the first membership label is obsolete, wherein the second cluster list comprises identifiers of a second plurality of replicas in the dynamic cluster, wherein the sending the second membership label and the second cluster list comprises: intercepting, from a servant, a first response comprising results to the first request to the client; adding the updated object reference to the first response, wherein the updated object reference comprises the second membership label and the second cluster list; and sending the first response to the client, wherein the first response sent to the client comprises the results and the updated object reference, and wherein the client updates the first cluster list with the second cluster list.