Patent ID: 8295169

Claim:
A method comprising: designating, by a controller of a network device, one of a plurality of forwarding planes as a primary forwarding plane and another one of the plurality of forwarding planes as a secondary forwarding plane; receiving, by an interface module, incoming data from a network; enabling, by the controller, transmission of the incoming data from the interface module to at least the primary forwarding plane and the secondary forwarding plane of the plurality of forwarding planes; independently maintaining, by at least the primary forwarding plane and the secondary forwarding plane of the plurality of forwarding planes, current state information associated with the network; transmitting, by at least the primary forwarding plane and the secondary forwarding plane of the plurality of forwarding planes, outgoing data to the interface module; discarding, by the interface module or the secondary forwarding plane, the outgoing data from the secondary forwarding plane; and transmitting, by the interface module, the outgoing data from the primary forwarding plane of the plurality of forwarding planes through the network.