Patent ID: 7925744

Claim:
A method of determining state in a distributed environment of one or more network devices, comprising: generating a plurality of object state values in a network device, one for each of a plurality of objects; combining the plurality of object state values into a derived state value; updating the derived state value in a first object of the plurality of object state values; detecting a change in the derived state value by a second object of the plurality of objects; flushing a datum associated with the second object responsive to detecting the change in the derived state value, wherein the first object and the second object can be the same object and; wherein detecting a change in the derived state value by the second object of the plurality of objects comprises: determining whether an updated derived state value is valid; and wherein the updated derived state value is valid if the absolute value of the difference between the updated derived state value and the derived state value is less than one-half the number of possible derived state values.