A lock management method and system, and a method and an apparatus for configuring a lock management system is provided. A corresponding level of a lock management system is set for each service execution node according to the number of service execution nodes included in a distributed system, the number of system instances on all service execution nodes, the number of handling processes on all the service execution nodes, and a delay of access of each service execution node to a central control node of the distributed system. At least one lock manager is allocated to each service execution node separately according to the level, which is corresponding to each service execution node, of the lock management system. A lock level context is configured for each lock manager, where the lock level context is used to determine an adjacent lock manager of each lock manager.