Patent ID: 7519717

Claim:
A method, in a network server, for network communication, the method comprising: establishing connections between the network server and a plurality of network clients, wherein each connection is established using a connection-oriented protocol, wherein the network server has a first server configuration stored in a memory of the network server, wherein the first server configuration comprises a set of server parameters specific to a network application that the network server provides to the plurality of network clients, wherein each of the plurality of network clients has a corresponding client configuration stored in a memory of the corresponding network client, and wherein each client configuration comprises a set of client parameters specific to the network application for the corresponding network client; storing a copy of each client configuration in a memory of the network server; replacing the first server configuration with a second server configuration in the memory of the network server, wherein the second server configuration changes at least one server parameter specific to the network application; responsive to replacing the first server configuration with the second server configuration, determining whether the client configuration of each of the plurality of network clients is incompatible with the second server configuration; identifying a subset of the plurality of network clients that have a corresponding client configuration that is incompatible with the second server configuration; disconnecting the subset of the plurality of network clients from the network server; and providing the network application to remaining network clients that are still connected to the network server using the connection-oriented protocol.