List<String> backends = new ArrayList<String>();
if (numPreferredNodes > 0) {
/* Attempt to parse the list of slaves, which we'll need to (randomly) select preferred
* nodes. */
if (!conf.containsKey(BACKENDS)) {
LOG.fatal("Missing configuration backend list, which is needed to randomly select " +
"preferred nodes (num_preferred_nodes set to " + numPreferredNodes + ")");
}
for (String node : conf.getStringArray(BACKENDS)) {
backends.add(node);