Disclosed are novel methods and apparatus for manipulating and generating a real-time counter in network computing environments. In an embodiment, a method of tracking a defect is disclosed. The method includes providing a defect abstract, the defect abstract including information to identify the defect; identifying a component having the defect; assigning a user to resolve the defect; and assigning a defect number to identify the defect, the defect number obtained by incrementing a counter value stored in a file, the file being accessible by a single user at a time.