Patent ID: 7546366

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, in a second computer node of a computer network, periodic heartbeat messages from a first computer node of the computer network, the second computer node including at least one resource for performing at least one network-specific task; transmitting heartbeat acknowledgement messages from the second computer node to the first computer node as responses to the heartbeat messages, wherein each heartbeat acknowledgement message indicates to the first computer node that the second computer node is operative within the computer network and wherein the heartbeat acknowledgement messages form a sequence of heartbeat acknowledgement messages transmitted from the second computer node to the first computer node; examining, in the second computer node, whether state information is to be retrieved for a heartbeat acknowledgement message to be transmitted to the first computer node, the heartbeat acknowledgement message belonging to the sequence of heartbeat acknowledgement messages and the state information being indicative of current ability of the at least one resource to perform the at least one network-specific task; retrieving the state information for the heartbeat acknowledgement message when the examining indicates that the state information is to be retrieved; and sending the retrieved state information in the heartbeat acknowledgement messages to the first computer node for storing the state information in the first computer node, wherein the examining is performed for each heartbeat acknowledgement message to be transmitted to the first computer node, thereby transferring a sequence of the state information within the sequence of heartbeat acknowledgement messages.