Patent ID: 7599997

Claim:
A method comprising: in a computer system having multiple non-loopback network addresses, receiving a request to store at least one data item; directing the at least one data item to a first non-loopback network address available to receive the at least one data item; in response to the request to store the at least one data item, continuously forwarding the at least one data item among the multiple non-loopback addresses in the computer system without storing the forwarded at least one data item on any fixed storage medium in the computer system, the continuously forwarding comprising: detecting a presence of the at least one data item at a specific non-loopback network address; and forwarding the at least one data item among the multiple non-loopback addresses in the computer system without storing the forwarded at least one data item on any fixed storage medium, the forwarded at least one data item being available for retrieval if a request to retrieve the at least one data item is received.