Patent ID: 8732324

Claim:
A method, comprising: using a computing device, obtaining an external hiatus declaration from a network device, indicating that the network device will pause emission of BGP KEEPALIVE messages; suspending communication with the network device until a particular hiatus time period expires; during the particular hiatus time period, upon receiving a BGP KEEPALIVE message from the network device, even if the particular hiatus time period has not expired, sending, to one or more other network devices, an internal hiatus declaration indicating that the network device will pause communications of BGP KEEPALIVE messages during a specified internal hiatus time period; suspending communication with the one or more other network devices; resuming communication with the one or more other network devices even though the internal hiatus time period has not expired by sending BGP KEEPALIVE messages to the one or more other network devices; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.