Patent ID: 7822711

Claim:
A system comprising: a network; and a plurality of computing nodes coupled via the network; wherein the plurality of nodes includes a first node operable to: create a first file representing a first version of a data object; detect a conflict between a first replica of the first version of the data object and a second replica of the first version of the data object; in response to detecting the conflict: modify a tree structure representing the data object to reflect the conflict, wherein modifying the tree structure comprises adding information to the tree structure representing a branching from the first version of the data object to a second version of the data object and a third version of the data object, wherein the first replica of the first version of the data object represents the second version of the data object and the second replica of the first version of the data object represents the third version of the data object; create a second file representing the second version of the data object; create a third file representing the third version of the data object; and store the second file and the third file in a common directory in a file system.