The objective of the INSTANCE (Intermediate Storage Node Concept) project is to support asynchronous communication in server-based systems, like World-Wide Web and Video-on-Demand, more efficiently by a new structure for server-based systems. The proposed approach will lead to a structure that is capable to support concurrently a higher number of clients with lower costs (compared to traditional approaches). Servers, which are called intermediate storage nodes in INSTANCE, are seen as a vehicle to transfer information in asynchronous mode from provider to consumer. The protocol stack is drastically reduced at the server - in analogy to intermediate network nodes. The Integrated Layer Processing principle is applied to the handling of data management system, application, and the remaining communication protocol.