Patent ID: 6965916

Claim:
A method for data distribution and recovery comprising the steps of: attaching unique sequence numbers to data packets; broadcasting the data packets from a server to a plurality of clients and an archive; waiting, at the server, for an acknowledgement from the archive for each individual data packet of the data packets, wherein the server receives the acknowledgement upon the archive receiving and storing the individual data packet, and wherein if the server does not receive the acknowledgement, then the server stores the individual data packet; storing the data packets with their attached unique sequence numbers that have been received at the plurality of clients; monitoring for a missing sequence number at a client; sending a query from the client that requests re-transmission of a missing data packet having the missing sequence number; and transmitting to the client the missing data packet wherein the step of sending a query comprises sending the query from the client to the archive and wherein if the archive does not respond or if the archive does not have the missing data packet then the step of sending a query further comprises sending the query to the server.