US Patent 7801848 Redistributing a distributed database

Illustrative embodiments provide a method for redistributing data in a distributed database. The method provides a set of servers, each of which having a respective portion of the distributed database resident thereon, and for routing requests to the set of servers by means of a proxy server. Responsive to a redistribution request to redistribute the distributed database among the set of servers from a first distribution to a second distribution, setting a flag in the proxy server indicating that redistribution is in progress. Further storing configuration data for the first distribution and the second distribution in the proxy server, and redistributing the data in the distributed database in accordance with the configuration data.