Scalability is provided by allowing multiple instances of any particular server (to distribute the load), and by minimizing the overhead necessary to propagate updates between RCDS servers. In particular, there is no requirement that all RCDS servers for a particular portion of LIFN-space contain the same set of locations, so long as a client can query multiple RCDS servers until it finds an accessible location for the desired resource. Location updates can thus be submitted to any location server associated with the LIFN's domain, and propagated to the others without needing a commit protocol. Similarly, updates to catalog records can be submitted to any catalog server for the URN's domain, though the asserter must first update that catalog server if it has stale data. In effect, updates to catalog records use a token-based algorithm, with the asserter obtaining the token and any accompanying updates before applying the new update.
Scalability of RCDS is also enhanced by limiting its scope (for instance, it does not do searching) and allowing it to be optimized for a small number of simple functions.