title: Is Node Stateful? Can Node maintain variables in memory
body: <p>Is Node stateful?    </p>
  
  <p>If I want to build an index to keep in memory, will it persist throughout different connections?  I'm just wondering if this is possible.  For example we have a server in java that maintains a hashmap in memory to speed up certain search queries. It modifies it as things come in.  Would this be possible in Node?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks. </p>