Gets the serialized version of the ConsistentRing. 
        Added this helper for the test code.

def _GetSerializedPartitionList(self):
        """Gets the serialized version of the ConsistentRing. 
        Added this helper for the test code.
        """
        partition_list = list()
        
        for part in self.partitions:
            partition_list.append((part.node, unpack("<L", part.hash_value)[0]))

        return partition_list