A method of fault-tolerant process control, comprising: providing a network process control system in an industrial processing facility (IPF) comprising a plant-wide network coupling at least one server to a plurality of computing platforms (621-624) each including computing hardware and memory hosting at least one software application for simultaneously supporting at least one process controller and another process controller or an input/output (I/O) gateway, the plurality of computing platforms coupled to one another by a private path redundancy network , the private path redundancy network providing a hardware resource pool by connecting process controllers together that enables any one of a plurality of process controllers to be placed into service for a failed controller to function as a redundant controller to control the associated field devices, the private path redundancy network that is a high-speed network has a speed greater than the speed of the plant-wide network to enable the plurality of computing platforms to connect with the one another of the plurality of computing platforms; wherein at least some of the plurality of computing platforms are directly coupled by an input/output (I/O) mesh network to plurality of I/O devices to field devices that are coupled to processing equipment ; detecting at least one failing device in the hardware resource pool, and utilizing the private path redundancy network, placing into service as a backup for the failing device another device at another of the plurality of computing platforms, where the another device provides another mission as a process controller or as an I/O gateway both immediately before and after the placing into service; and performing an initial synchronization after the placing in service, and then a slower synchronization compared to the initial synchronization to transfer a complete database in an atomic fashion while running as the backup. providing a network process control system in an industrial processing facility (IPF) comprising a plant-wide network coupling at least one server to a plurality of computing platforms (621-624) each including computing hardware and memory hosting at least one software application for simultaneously supporting at least one process controller and another process controller or an input/output (I/O) gateway, the plurality of computing platforms coupled to one another by a private path redundancy network , the private path redundancy network providing a hardware resource pool by connecting process controllers together that enables any one of a plurality of process controllers to be placed into service for a failed controller to function as a redundant controller to control the associated field devices, the private path redundancy network that is a high-speed network has a speed greater than the speed of the plant-wide network to enable the plurality of computing platforms to connect with the one another of the plurality of computing platforms; wherein at least some of the plurality of computing platforms are directly coupled by an input/output (I/O) mesh network to plurality of I/O devices to field devices that are coupled to processing equipment ; detecting at least one failing device in the hardware resource pool, and utilizing the private path redundancy network, placing into service as a backup for the failing device another device at another of the plurality of computing platforms, where the another device provides another mission as a process controller or as an I/O gateway both immediately before and after the placing into service; and performing an initial synchronization after the placing in service, and then a slower synchronization compared to the initial synchronization to transfer a complete database in an atomic fashion while running as the backup. <EOS>