Patent ID: 7188113

Claim:
A method for executing transactions, the method comprising the steps of: assigning a plurality of slaves to participate in execution of a transaction that involves modifications to a plurality of table partitions in at least one table; wherein data for each partition of said plurality of table partitions is stored in data blocks; wherein each partition of said plurality of table partitions is associated with a corresponding plurality of lists, wherein each list of said plurality of lists: identifies data blocks within said corresponding partition that satisfy one or more criteria, are used, by processes modifying data blocks, to identify a particular data block that satisfies said one or more criteria; and dividing said plurality of slaves into a plurality of groups such that the number of slaves in each group of said plurality of groups does not exceed a threshold number based on how many lists there are in the corresponding plurality of lists of any partition; assigning at least a portion of the plurality of table partitions to the plurality of groups; and for each group of said plurality of groups, slaves in said each group modifying data in the partitions assigned to said each group.