Patent ID: 7304940

Claim:
A network switch assembly, comprising: a first control entity selectively configurable between an active state and a standby state; a second control entity selectively configurable between a standby state and an active state; at least one line blade communicating with at least one of the first control entity and the second control entity and having at least one port configurable to enable switching of information; wherein one of the control entities is configured as an active control entity, another of the control entities is configured as a standby control entity, and the active control entity is configured to transfer state information for the active control entity that is forwarded to the standby control; and wherein: the first control entity comprises processing circuitry, the second control entity comprises processing circuitry, and the processing circuitry from the active control entity communicates with the processing circuitry from the standby control entity and is configured to transfer a state of the active control entity to the standby control entity; the processing circuitry of the first control entity is configured to synchronize the states of the first control entity and the second control entity; the first control entity and the second control entity each comprise a redundancy manager and the processing circuitry is configured to synchronize state information between the respective control entities; the processing circuitry is configured to detect a loss of communication between the respective redundancy managers, and the switch assembly configures the another control entity as the active control entity and reboots the another control entity; and in response to the switch assembly configuring the another control entity as the active control entity, the another control entity sends a de-queue signal to the line blade.