US Patent 10235407 Distributed storage system journal forking

A forking coordinator of a journal-based multi-data-store database determines that a forking criterion for a first journal has been met. The coordinator stores an indication that processing of transaction requests directed to a particular subset of the database is suspended. The coordinator instantiates a second journal for storing committed transaction entries for the particular subset. Metadata of the second journal indicates that transaction entries with sequence numbers in a particular range are stored in the first journal. The coordinator stores an indication that transaction processing associated with the particular subset of the system is to be resumed using the second journal.