Patent ID: 8700585

Claim:
In a shared file system that is accessible by a group of servers, wherein the shared file system resides in a data storage unit having a logical storage space that is contiguous and maps to physical storage space of a shared storage array, a method for committing a transaction acting upon data stored in the logical storage space of said data storage unit, the method being carried out by a server in said group and comprising: reading a state of a set of locks relating to the data from the data storage unit, wherein the data and data fields of the locks relating to the data are stored in the logical storage space of the data storage unit; constructing a completed transaction in memory of said server prior to acquiring the locks; after said constructing, acquiring exclusive possession of the data storage unit, wherein said acquiring prevents other servers in the group from accessing the logical storage space of the data storage unit; while having exclusive possession of the data storage unit, acquiring the locks if the state of the locks has not changed since said reading; and committing the completed transaction, where said acquiring the locks includes writing a unique identifier associated with said server into one of the data fields of each of the locks.