Patent ID: 8438254

Claim:
A network appliance for providing distributed cache services, the network appliance comprising: at least one platform service stored in memory and executable by a processor to provide one or more services to a client computer; a service monitoring process stored in memory and executable to monitor a status of the at least one platform service using interprocess communications; and a distributed cache service executable to: record information specific to an individual user employing the at least one platform service, the recorded information including authentication information specific to the user, determine an amount and type of the recorded authentication information to forward to another executable platform service on another network appliance when the at least one platform service fails, as detected by execution of the service monitoring process, the another executable platform service corresponding to the at least one platform service, the determination based on the individual user, and forward the determined amount and type of recorded authentication information to the another executable platform service, wherein the recorded authentication information is employed to provide the one or more services to the user without interruption.