Methods, systems and computer program products for operating a plurality of nodes within a network are provided. Using a monitoring node, a subgroup of the plurality of nodes is monitored, the subgroup including the monitoring node and a non-monitoring node. The non-monitoring node is configured to not manage a distributed database distributed among all monitoring nodes of the plurality of nodes, other non-monitoring nodes of the plurality of nodes, and the monitoring nodes of the plurality of nodes and is configured to not store replicated data from other ones of the plurality of nodes.