One machine, i.e. computer, on a network, such as associated with a distributed database, e.g. a data store or a partition thereof, is designated as a master, which alone can issue system orderstamps for transactional operations, while other machines associated with the data store or partition thereof act as any of clients that submit transactions to the master, or as slaves that adhere to updates from the master. If a transactional operation on the distributed database is attempted on a client machine, and communication cannot be established with the master machine, the transaction fails. The distributed data store having such a master provides a method that decreases transaction time across the distributed database, and maintains consistent data between separate machines.