Data Layout for Recovery and Durability

Abstract

A Metadata server described herein is configured to generate a metadata table optimized for data durability and recovery. In generating the metadata table, the metadata server associates each possible combination of servers with one of the indices of the table, thereby ensuring that each server participates in recovery in the event of a server failure. In addition, the metadata server may also associate one or more additional servers with each index to provide added data durability. Upon generating the metadata table, the metadata server provides the metadata table to clients or servers. Alternatively, the metadata server may provide rules and parameters to clients to enable those clients to identify servers storing data items. The clients may use these parameters and an index as inputs to the rules to determine the identities of servers storing or designated to store data items corresponding to the index.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.