1. A method of establishing a new cluster membership of computer system nodes sharing direct read/write access to storage devices via a storage area network and a cluster operating system, comprising: initiating a new membership protocol to establish a new cluster in response to a change in cluster membership; transitioning a particular one of the nodes to a leader state, the particular one of the nodes becoming a leader node; transitioning other nodes to a stable state; establishing message channels between nodes; sending probe message from the leader node to nodes in the stable state; transitioning nodes in the stable state to a follower state upon receipt of the probe message; sending replies from the nodes in the follower state to the leader node; accumulated replies to the probe message at the leader node; transmitting version information indicating version levels of functions for at least one subsystem of the cluster operating system from each node of a prospective membership to the leader node when establishing the nodes available for cluster membership; transmitting the version information for all of the nodes with a proposed cluster membership from the leader node to all other nodes in the proposed cluster membership so that each node is aware of the version of functions operating on other nodes; establishing the cluster to allow contact between all other nodes in response to transmitting the version information from the leader node.