Index partition maintenance over monotonically addressed document sequences

A system, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• hardware logic coupled to the processor and performing operations, the operations comprising:
• partitioning a physical index into one or more physical partitions;
• assigning each of the one or more physical partitions to a node in a cluster of nodes;
• for each received document, assigning an assigned-doc-ID comprising an integer document identifier;
• and
• in response to assigning the assigned-doc-ID to a document,
• determining a cut-off of assignment of new documents to a current virtual-index-epoch comprising a first set of physical partitions;
• and
• placing the new documents into a new virtual-index-epoch comprising a second set of physical partitions by inserting each new document to a specific one of the physical partitions in the second set using one or more functions that direct the placement based on one of the assigned-doc-id, a field value derived from a set of fields obtained from the document, and a combination of the assigned-doc-id and the field value.

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed by a processor on a computer causes the computer to perform:

• partitioning a physical index into one or more physical partitions;
• assigning each of the one or more physical partitions to a node in a cluster of nodes;
• for each received document, assigning an assigned-doc-ID comprising an integer document identifier;
• and
• in response to assigning the assigned-doc-ID to a document,
• determining a cut-off of assignment of new documents to a current virtual-index-epoch comprising a first set of physical partitions;
• and
• placing the new documents into a new virtual-index-epoch comprising a second set of physical partitions by inserting each new document to a specific one of the physical partitions in the second set using one or more functions that direct the placement based on one of the assigned-doc-id, a field value derived from a set of fields obtained from the document, and a combination of the assigned-doc-id and the field value.