Patent ID: 6928583

Claim:
A fault-tolerant server comprising: (a) a communications link comprising a switching fabric, a first communications channel, and a second communications channel; (b) a first computing element in electrical communication with the communications link, the first computing element providing a first output to the communications link; (c) a second computing element in electrical communication with the communications link, the second computing element providing a second output to the communications link; (d) a first local input-output (I/O) module in electrical communication with the first computing element and the communications link; and (e) a second local I/O module in electrical communication with the second computing element and the communications link, wherein at least one of the first local I/O module and the second local I/O module compares the first output and the second output and indicates a fault of at least one of the first computing element and the second computing element upon the detection of a miscompare of the first output and the second output, and wherein the first local I/O module is in electrical communication with the second local I/O module via a sync bus to synchronize the first local I/O module and the second local I/O module, the synchronization of the first local I/O module and the second local I/O module providing a verification of state information about the first computing element and the second computing element.