System and method for rare copy-on-write in a distributed computing environment

A system support efficient data access in a distributed computing environment comprising a clustered plurality of nodes, each node comprising:

• a computer server comprising a microprocessor and a memory;
• a data structure operating on the computer server wherein the data structure is configured for read-only access to reduce data access overhead and improve performance of the distributed computing environment;
• wherein the data structure is configured to,
• serve a plurality of read requests for a particular data object from the data structure on said computer server,
• create, on said computer server, external to said data structure, a copy of particular data object from the data structure in response to a write request to modify said particular data object,
• modify, on said computer server, said copy of said particular data object in response to said write request to generate a modified data object external to said data structure,
• provide, on said computer server, read and write access to said modified data object external to said data structure, including serving one or more write requests and a plurality of read requests using said modified data object external to said data structure,
• maintain a count of read requests received for the modified data object and resetting the count of read requests each time a write request is received for the modified data object, and
• write said modified data object back to said data structure on said computer server when said count of read requests received for said modified data object reaches a threshold number.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium including instructions stored thereon for supporting efficient data access in a distributed computing environment, which instructions, when executed on a node of the distributed computing environment, cause the node to perform steps comprising:

• providing a data structure on said node in the distributed computing environment wherein the data structure is configured for read-only access to reduce data access overhead and improve performance of the distributed computing environment;
• serving, on said node, a plurality of read requests for a particular data object from the data structure;
• creating, on said node, external to said data structure, a copy of the particular data object from the data structure in response to a write request to modify said particular data object;
• modifying, on said node, said copy of said particular data object in response to said write request to create a modified data object external to said data structure;
• providing read and write access to said modified data object on said node external to said data structure, including serving one or more write requests and a plurality of read requests using said modified data object external to said data structure;
• maintaining a count of read requests received for the modified data object and resetting the count of read requests each time a write request is received for the modified data object;
• and
• writing said modified data object back to said data structure on said node when said count of read requests for said modified data object reaches a threshold number.