Apparatus and methods for highly available directory services in the distributed computing environment

In the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) standard, availability of directory services is increased by apparatus and methods using agents inserted between requesting clients and servers. By using agents, additional functions are carried out which are not performed in a typical DCE environment. Each agent inserts itself between the requesters and servers by writing over the pointer to the server with information pointing to the agent, thus redirecting requests to themselves. The agent then receives incoming requests and forwards them on to its associated server and other agents. The agent handling requests for the master server is called the "master" agent and the agents handling requests for replica servers are "replica" agents. The agents make sure requests are performed before replying to the original requester. Agents also monitor themselves. If a master agent crashes, the remaining agents elect a new master agent. If a replica agent crashes the master agent excludes the agent from further communications. The apparatus and methods provide a highly available and robust directory server.