Patent ID: 7002975

Claim:
A method of data processing comprising: connecting a plurality of data processing nodes in a peer-to-peer relationship, thereby enabling each data processing node to receive data packets from adjacent input connected nodes and to transmit data packets to adjacent output connected nodes; at each data processing node examining data packets received from adjacent input connected nodes and selectively routing the received data packet to the current data processing node, routing to an adjacent output connected node or both, whereby any data processing node can transmit a data packet to any destination data processing node for forwarding by other data processing nodes to the destination data processing node; at each data processing node responding to a receipt confirmation data packet received from a source data processing node by transmitting an acknowledge data packet to the source data processing node transmitting that receipt confirmation data packet; and at least one supervisory data processing node periodically transmitting a receipt acknowledge data packet to each other data processing node and determining a data processing node has failed upon failure to receive an acknowledge data packet from the data processing node in response to a receipt confirmation data packet.