Patent ID: 7506194

Claim:
A method for restarting a network device, the network device having a plurality of route processors, the network device being arranged to be in communication with a plurality of peers within a network, the plurality of peers including a first peer and a second peer, the first peer being arranged to support graceful restart, the method comprising: performing a graceful restart with respect to the first peer; performing a peer transparent failover with respect to the second peer, including: processing an event queue associated with a standby route processor of the plurality of route processors to recreate at least one state associated with a session between the network device and the second peer on the standby route processor; identifying at least one send packet that is to be sent on the standby route processor; and sending out a dummy packet to the second peer using the standby route processor to substantially fill in for the at least one send packet; wherein the graceful restart and the peer transparent failover are performed in response to downtime associated with the network device.