HEARTBEAT DISTRIBUTION THAT FACILITATES RECOVERY IN THE EVENT OF A SERVER FAILURE DURING A USER DIALOG

An exemplary method facilitates automatic recovery upon failure of a server in a network responsible for replying to user requests. Periodic heartbeat information is generated by a first group of servers responsible for replying to user requests. The heartbeat information provides an indication of the current operational functionality of the first group of servers. A second group of servers determines that one of the first servers has failed based on the periodic heartbeat information. The second group of servers is disposed in communication channels between users and the first group of servers. One of the second group of servers receives a message containing a request from a first user having the one of the first group of servers as a destination. One of the second group of servers determines that the message is part of an ongoing dialog of messages between the first user and the one of the first group of servers. Stored dialog information contained in previous communications between the first user and the one of the first group of servers associated with the ongoing dialog is retrieved. Another message is transmitted from the one of the second group of servers to another of the first group of servers. The another message includes the request contained in the message and the retrieved dialog information. This enables the another server to process the request based on the retrieved dialog information without requiring the first user to have to retransmit previously transmitted information that was part of the dialog information.