Patent ID: 7526577

Claim:
In a computerized system comprising a processor, a switching layer, and a sequence of one or more intermediate software layers of a network protocol stack, each of the intermediate software layers having a state object, a method for transferring control between one or more destination component devices and one or more source component devices, the control needed to process a plurality of network connections while still maintaining integrity of established network communication, the method comprising the following: an act of generating an offload data structure, the offload data structure comprising a hierarchy of a plurality of state objects forming an inverted tree structure, the hierarchy corresponding to a plurality of network connections sharing a common path state object, the plurality of state objects corresponding to a network protocol state for one or more intermediate software layers; an act of concurrently transferring from a source component device to a destination component device two or more state objects corresponding to the plurality of network connections in the same intermediate software layer of the offload data structure wherein one of the destination component and source component is a peripheral device; an act of the destination component processing the two or more state objects at the same protocol layer after the transfer an act of detecting a failover event at one or more peripheral device, which includes: an act of detecting that one or more links being processed at one or more corresponding peripheral devices have failed, the one or more failed peripheral devices having been given processor control of one or more offload data structures and one or more state objects; and an act of detecting a different one or more peripheral devices for handling processing control of the one or more links by receiving the one or more offload data structures and control of the one or more state objects.