Transaction management systems can take advantage of a lightweight approach to conversation management. In a cluster, a conversation manager can be used to keep track of state location throughout the cluster. When a cluster computing device receives a request, that computing device can contact the conversation manager to determine the location of the state within the cluster. Once the conversation manager provides the computing device with the location of the state, the computing device can invoke the state for the conversation. All state information can be kept in-memory on computing devices in the cluster in order to improve performance.This description is not intended to be a complete description of, or limit the scope of, the invention. Other features, aspects, and objects of the invention can be obtained from a review of the specification, the figures, and the claims.