Patent ID: 8787391

Claim:
A method implemented and residing within a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that is executed by one or more processors of a network to perform the method, comprising: configuring network nodes of the network to detect network packets of a predefined type and to forward those network packets among the network nodes without removing the network packets from the network, the network packets are identified as memory objects of the network, each network node retrieves particular memory objects of the predefined type and reinserts those particular memory objects, without storing those particular memory objects on that node, back into the network for acquisition and inspection by other ones of the network nodes when that network node determines that the particular memory objects are not needed by particular applications residing on that network node; and using, by each of the network nodes, the network packets that are cyclically traversing the network as a memory device shared among the network nodes, information housed in the memory objects resides in network transmission lines and bandwidth of the network without being written to memory or storage of any of the network nodes operating on the network until consumed or needed by applications interfaced to the network nodes, wherein configuring further includes configuring the network nodes to take a copy of particular ones of the network packets that applications in communication with the network nodes are looking for or requesting, and once the copy is taken the particular ones of the network packets are re-injected into the network by the network nodes.