Patent ID: 7778986

Claim:
A method performed by at least one processor coupled to a memory, the method comprising: maintaining, by the at least one processor, a plurality of nodes coupled over a network, wherein a first node of the plurality of nodes initially owns a plurality of storage objects accessible via the network; maintaining a serialization lock in association with the plurality of storage objects, wherein the first node becomes unavailable; determining, by a second node of the plurality of nodes, that the second node is to preemptively assume ownership of a selected storage object of the plurality of storage objects initially owned by the first node that has become unavailable; acquiring, by the second node, the serialization lock; securing, by the second node, ownership of the selected storage object, subsequent to acquiring the serialization lock; and in response to the first node becoming available subsequent to the ownership of the selected storage object being secured by the second node, performing during reconciliation by the second node: returning ownership of the selected storage object to the first node, in response to the first node having written to the selected storage object, and the second node having read but not written to the selected storage object; maintaining ownership of the selected storage object with the second node, in response to the first node not having written to the selected storage object and the second node having written to the selected object; and moving the selected storage object into an error state, in response to both the first node and the second node having written to the selected storage object.