Patent ID: 7320085

Claim:
A method for coordinating the actions of multiple computers, called hosts, within a computing cluster to control the cluster's access to multiple, shared resources comprising: a) employing the use of multiple, independent quorum algorithms each of which is implemented as a separate logical construct called a quorum object, said quorum object controlling access to a single shared resource; b) assigning two or more hosts within the cluster to be members of each quorum object and to thereby use the quorum object to control access to the shared resource; c) allowing any host to be a member of more than one quorum object so that the quorum objects can have overlapping memberships; d) allowing new quorum objects to be created as needed and to be assigned to a subset of hosts within the cluster instead of requiring that multiple, additional hosts be added to the cluster as the exclusive members of a new quorum object; and e) thereby allowing the membership of a computing cluster to scale by adding a single host instead of by growing the size of a single quorum's membership or by requiring the addition of a new quorum and multiple, new hosts assigned exclusively to that quorum.