1. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable modules comprising: a first module for receiving configuration information associated with a port or a genre communicated from a persistent store of a communicatively connected computer and for storing and updating the configuration information in respective data tables absent locking of the data tables during storing and updating, the data tables being shareable with appropriate processes of a plurality of processes wherein the first module is further operable to update configuration information by copying a lower level of previously stored configuration information first, the configuration information comprising a value associated with the genre in a region of computer memory adapted for the storage of values while not impeding the retrieval of the previously stored configuration information for the genre wherein the value comprises at least one of the following: a character string and a numeric value, the configuration information associated with one of the following: a port and a genre; and a second module for retrieving configuration information from a data table and providing the retrieved configuration information to at least one process of the plurality of processes.