A distributed data system may include a plurality of nodes one or more of which may include at least one multi-threaded process operable to access portions of distributed data. A lock mechanism may grant locks to the multi-threaded processes for portions of the distributed data. Only a process holding a lock may access a portion corresponding to the lock. Threads of other processes may not access the portion. A process may include a lock management thread pool dedicated to managing locks for portions of the distributed data for access by other threads of the process. Each lock management thread of the lock management thread pool may request a lock for a portion of distributed data on behalf of the process. The process may hold one or more locks for portions of distributed data corresponding to one or more lock management threads of the lock management thread pool.

A system and method for providing dynamic class reloading using a modular, pluggable and maintainable class loader is described. Each application in an application server (or alternatively in any implementation) may include a dynamic class loader module. The class loader module may include a hierarchical stack of class loaders. Each module in the application may be associated with its own class loader. Each class loader may be responsible for loading one or more classes. When a class is changed, the changed class may be detected by the class loader module. Any notification for a class change may come to the class loader controller so that the concerned class loader can be replaced. The class loaders for all classes that depend on the changed class may also be replaced. The replaced class loaders may then reload the affected classes.