Patent ID: 7308502

Claim:
A method to provide client session failover, the method comprising: authenticating a client to a server; when the client is authenticated, sending a local session token and a security assertion from the server to the client, where the local session token is used to maintain a local session between the client and the server and where the security assertion is then stored in the client, and wherein the security assertion includes authentication information, authorization information, a validity period for the security assertion, and attribute information to permit the client to failover to a failover server; if the server fails, sending a request including the security assertion from the client to the failover server; validating, by the failover server, the security assertion, so that the failover server establishes a session with the client in response to a successful validation of the security assertion; and establishing a new local session between the client and the failover server after the failover server successfully validates the security assertion so that the security assertion that is successfully validated permits the client to failover from the server to the failover server.