Systems and methods for non-disruptive cache startup, shutdown, data partition movement, and node rebalancing for a data fabric within a data grid in a database environment. The data grid is a clustered in-memory database (IMDB) cache comprising one or more data fabrics including multiple IMDB cache nodes. The method takes a time tag and moves data from source to destination nodes while allowing updates to data on the source nodes. The method propagates updates occurring after the time tag to destination nodes from source nodes and switches applications and ownership to the destination nodes. Another method slices data for a partitioned fabric and stores slices on nodes. Another method starts a data fabric by moving data from a grid backend to the nodes. In an embodiment, another method rebalances nodes in a non-disruptive manner. When a fabric is shutdown, the method saves data from the nodes to the grid backend.