Efficient maintenance of a distributed system membership view

摘要

A method, system and computer program product are disclosed for maintaining a membership view of a distributed computing system comprising a multitude of members, wherein each of said members sends out a message indicating that said each of the members is available in the system. In one embodiment, the method comprises maintaining a first list of at least some of the members in the distributed system; and over a period of time, when one of the members sends out the message indicating that said one of the members is available in the distributed system, adding said one of the members to a second list. At defined times, the first list is replaced with the second list. In an embodiment, the method further comprises at said defined times, starting a new, empty second list.