Patent 8010648 was granted and assigned to Microsoft on August, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Replica placement in a network of nodes is provided. Nodes are selected for replica placement to satisfy location-based preferences. Additionally, nodes are selected for replica placement to spread replicas of the same data over different fault domains and upgrade domains. In some instances, nodes may be selected for replica placement based on load-based information for the nodes.