Patent ID: 7111035

Claim:
A system for communicating between an outside computer and a cluster of computers comprising: a first computer and a second computer, comprising: a primary instance of a transmission control protocol resident on the first computer; a primary data structure coupled to the primary instance describing the state of an association defining pathways between the cluster and the outside computer, the state description including names or addresses of the first computer, the second computer, and the outside computer; a secondary instance of a transmission control protocol resident on the second computer; a secondary data structure coupled to the secondary instance replicated from the primary data structure; an intra-cluster network coupling the first computer and the second computer; a synchronization process coupled to the primary data structure and the secondary data structure replicating the primary data structure to the secondary data structure across the intra-cluster network to synchronize the structures; wherein the primary instance comprises a first node in the association between the outside computer and the cluster and wherein the outside computer comprises an opposite node; wherein the secondary instance comprises a second node in the association between the outside computer and the cluster; wherein the association is configured such that address of the first node and the address of the second node are provided to the opposite node at the same time as different addresses for the same node through the communication between the cluster and the opposite node in accordance with the transmission control protocol.