Mechanism and method for accessing data in a shared memory

A mechanism for accessing data in a shared memory by at least one client, comprising:

• an allocation of data in the shared memory into at least one topic, the allocation being accessible by a predetermined constant address;
• the at least one topic having a number of buffers, the number of buffers being equal to a number of clients accessing the at least one topic, plus two for each server accessing the at least one topic;
• each client and each server having an active access pointer;
• and
• an active access pointer director to direct active access pointers to buffers based on a transaction request from a client or a server;
• wherein one buffer always includes the most recent data in the shared memory, and at least one buffer is always available to access data in the shared memory;
• and
• wherein the active access pointers are allocated among buffers by the active access pointer director using only machine assembly language transactions without copying the data at an operating system level.