Cisco Systems Endpoint Name Resolution Protocol (ENRP) is designed to work in conjunction with Aggregate Server Access Protocol (ASAP) [ASAP]. ENRP when combined with ASAP provdes a fault tolerant data transfer mechanism over IP networks. ASAP uses a name-based addressing model which isolates a logical communication endpoint from its IP address(es), thus effectively eliminating the binding between the communication endpoint and its physical IP address(es) which normally constitutes a single point of failure. The fault tolerant server pooling is gained by combining the two parts, namely ASAP and the Endpoint Name Resolution Part (ENRP). ASAP provides the user interface for name to address translation, load sharing management, and fault management. ENRP defines the fault tolerant name translation service.