A system and method for expediting the replication of at least one
specified object to a replica in a distributed computer system. A source
object of a source replica determines that it has an urgent change to
propagate through the distributed system, and informs a replication
facility at the source replica of the urgent change. The facility
extracts, or is provided with, the change information from that object,
and the source replica communicates information representative of the
change to a destination replica. A replication facility at the
destination replica provides the change information to a destination
replica object, which uses the information to make itself consistent with
the source replica object.