A system for providing a middleware machine, comprising: a computing hardware, including one or more processors, a memory, and redundant InfiniBand and Ethernet networking; a middleware environment operating thereon that includes one or more application server instances; a user space, which includes a Java virtual machine (JVM) and one or more application server instances; and a plurality of byte buffers accessible to the JVM and the one or more application server instances; wherein: the system includes one or more of zero buffer copies, scatter/gather I/O, parallel multiplexed T3 connections, and/or lazy deserialization; and the system is configured so that when a request is received by a first application server instance: data associated with the request is stored in a heap space associated with the JVM, the JVM pins the portion of the heap space where the data is stored, the data is pushed to a first byte buffer where it is accessed by the first application server instance, a response is generated by the first application server using the data, and the response is sent by the first application server. a computing hardware, including one or more processors, a memory, and redundant InfiniBand and Ethernet networking; a middleware environment operating thereon that includes one or more application server instances; a user space, which includes a Java virtual machine (JVM) and one or more application server instances; and a plurality of byte buffers accessible to the JVM and the one or more application server instances; wherein: the system includes one or more of zero buffer copies, scatter/gather I/O, parallel multiplexed T3 connections, and/or lazy deserialization; and the system is configured so that when a request is received by a first application server instance: data associated with the request is stored in a heap space associated with the JVM, the JVM pins the portion of the heap space where the data is stored, the data is pushed to a first byte buffer where it is accessed by the first application server instance, a response is generated by the first application server using the data, and the response is sent by the first application server. the system includes one or more of zero buffer copies, scatter/gather I/O, parallel multiplexed T3 connections, and/or lazy deserialization; and the system is configured so that when a request is received by a first application server instance: data associated with the request is stored in a heap space associated with the JVM, the JVM pins the portion of the heap space where the data is stored, the data is pushed to a first byte buffer where it is accessed by the first application server instance, a response is generated by the first application server using the data, and the response is sent by the first application server. data associated with the request is stored in a heap space associated with the JVM, the JVM pins the portion of the heap space where the data is stored, the data is pushed to a first byte buffer where it is accessed by the first application server instance, a response is generated by the first application server using the data, and the response is sent by the first application server. <EOS>