Patent ID: 7739542

Claim:
A method for detecting the availability of system components of a communication system, comprising: providing a plurality of hardware devices that operate the system components of the communication system at least in duplicate, wherein in a normal mode of the communication system a first portion of the system components comprises active system components , and a second portion of the system components comprises redundant system components for the active system components operating in standby mode and taking over the function of previously active system components in the event of failure of at least one of the plurality of said hardware devices; combining, relative to function or task, the system components and at least a communication channel, a software process and data used by the relative system components into resource groups, wherein each resource group is adapted to run on at least two hardware devices of said plurality of said hardware devices, wherein in the normal mode of the communication system and to verify the availability of the system components: one resource group of the resource groups is active on precisely one single hardware device of said plurality of said hardware devices, and at least one redundant resource group is operated in standby mode on at least one other hardware device of said plurality of said hardware devices; and automatically replicating the data of the active resource group to the data of the at least one redundant resource group; wherein in the normal mode of the communication system at least one resource group is active on every hardware device of said plurality of said hardware devices.