Patent ID: 7231391

Claim:
A method of providing highly-available database clusters which replicate at least one data file, the method comprising: receiving with a first computing system one or more data requests from a client application over a first client connection, the one or more data requests requesting access to data of a first data file; associating a timestamp with each data request; forwarding each data request to a first database management system of the first computing system, the first database management system being capable of accessing the data of the first data file according to the data request; forwarding each data request and each associated timestamp to a memory; forwarding replication data to the memory, wherein the replication data is sufficient to indicate changes made to the data of the first data file based on the one or more data requests and wherein each replication data includes a timestamp; comparing the timestamps of one or more of the replication data to the timestamps of one or more of the data requests; when the one or more of the data requests are determined to be redundant to the one or more of the replication data based on the timestamps, purging one of (a) one or more of the data requests and (b) one or more of the replication data; forwarding the other of (a) and (b) to a second database management system of a second computing system, the second database management system being capable of accessing data of a second data file; determining a need to move the first client connection to a second client connection with the second computing system; and moving the first client connection to the second client connection in a manner preventing the client application from failing.