In one embodiment, a computing device accesses an entity database storing information about entities in a virtualization environment. Each of the entities is associated with a single entity type and a shard. The shard further corresponds to the single entity type. The computing device determines an entity trail for the single shard, based on a modification history for one or more of the entities associated with the shard. The entity trail is divided into a plurality of time segments. The computing device receives an update from a client device indicating an update to an entity that is associated with the shard, and a client timestamp. The computing device selects a time segment corresponding to the client timestamp, and updates that portion of the entity trail with the client update.