Patent ID: 8676757

Claim:
A method for maintaining a dataset that can be used to synchronize multiple instances of a data store, comprising: in response to determining that an instance of the data store has been modified, adding a new change set to a dataset that includes a sequentially-ordered sequence of change sets associated with the data store, wherein adding the new change set to the dataset comprises: identifying one or more entities in the instance of the data store that have undergone a state change since state changes represented by a last change set in the sequentially-ordered sequence of change sets were applied to the instance of the data store, adding one or more entries to the new change set that specify how the state of each entity of the one or more identified entities has changed since the state changes represented by the last change set were applied to the instance of the data store, the adding including adding the one or more entries to the new change set in correspondence with a new change set marker; and removing any entries from any change set(s) previously included in the dataset that specify how the state of any of the one or more identified entities was changed due to a previous modification of an instance of the data store.