Patent ID: 7518982

Claim:
A method of communicating information between cards of a network element in addition to data traffic being forwarded between the cards, the method comprising: transmitting a first out-of-band signal containing information from a first card in the network element to a second card in the network element over a link, the link carrying the first out-of-band signal between the first card and the second card by a different path from a path used to forward data traffic between the first and second cards; receiving, by the second card in the network element, out-of-band signals from a plurality of other cards in the network element; incorporating, by the second card in the network element, information extracted from the out-of-band signals received from the plurality of other cards in the network element into a second out-of-band signal; and transmitting the second out-of-band signal from the second card in the network element to the first card in the network element over the link.