Patent ID: 8639724

Claim:
A method of managing information associated with a stored object, the object represented by a key, the information including a keymap corresponding to the mapping of the key to one or more locators, each of the one or more locators associated with an instance of the object, the method comprising: obtaining, at a keymap coordinator, an identifier associated with the keymap coordinator, wherein keymap information including the identifier associated with the keymap coordinator indicates that the keymap coordinator has most recently modified the keymap information; obtaining a read request at the keymap coordinator for keymap information associated with a first key; obtaining cached keymap information, at the keymap coordinator, corresponding to the read request, the cached keymap information including at least one generations identifier associated with the cached keymap information, each of the at least one generations identifiers identifying a component that accessed the keymap information associated with the first key at a time corresponding to creation of the generations identifier; determining that the identifier associated with the keymap coordinator matches the most recent generations identifier of the at least one generations identifier associated with the cached keymap information, and in response to said determination, processing the obtained cached keymap information responsive to the read request; determining that the identifier associated with the keymap coordinator does not match the most recent generations identifier of the at least one generations identifier associated with the cached keymap information, and in response to said determination: transmitting a request from the keymap coordinator to a keymap information source for keymap information; obtaining responsive keymap information at the keymap coordinator from the keymap information source; updating the cached keymap information to correspond to the obtained responsive keymap information; and processing the updated cached keymap information responsive to the read request.