Abstract: A store and forward facility for use in a multiprocessing, multinode environment is disclosed wherein two fundamental processes (transfer and delivery) perform the bulk of the activities required in this facility. A transfer process permits the creation of a message by an originating applications process and transfers this message to a similar transfer process in each of the nodes to which the message is to be delivered. This message is then in turn transferred to a delivery process which maintains a work item for each message to be delivered to a destination applications process and causes a notification to be sent to that destination application process when an earliest delivery time specified in the message has been reached. The delivery process causes the destination applications process to be created if that process is not currently executing.