Patent ID: 7085833

Claim:
A network system, comprising: a network server configured to maintain network access information corresponding to users authorized to access the network system, the network access information comprising identifiers to indicate network group memberships that an individual user is a member of in the network system; a domain controller remotely located from the network sewer at a remote network site and communicatively linked with the network server, the domain controller configured to locally administrate access to the network system; the domain controller further configured to: track individual users that request access to the network system via the domain controller at the remote network site, the domain controller configured to track a user by identifying the remote network site where the user requests the access, recording a time at which the request is made, and monitoring when the network access information is cached for the user that requests the access; receive a first network access request from the user and validate the first network access request with the network access information maintained at the network server when the network access information is not cached at the domain controller; maintain user objects associated with the individual users that request access to the network system from the domain controller; cache the network access information including the user objects; and receive a second network access request from the user and validate the second network access request with the network access information cached at the domain controller wherein the network server is further configured to replicate a partial copy of the user objects from the domain controller such that the replicated partial copy of the user objects can be associated with individual identifiers to identify the network group memberships for the individual user.