Patent ID: 8843688

Claim:
A computer program product to repair switch units in a distributed switch comprising a plurality of switch units, each switch unit of the plurality having at least one port for establishing connections according to a predefined interface, the computer program product comprising: a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer-readable program code embodied therewith, the computer-readable program code comprising: computer-readable program code configured to, responsive to receiving an indication to vary off a first switch unit of the plurality of switch units: identify a host connected to the first switch unit; transmit a first removal indication to the host to remove a connection between the host and the first switch unit; and upon determining that: (i) the host is connected to the first switch unit through a downstream port of the first switch unit and (ii) the host has not acknowledged the first removal indication within a predefined amount of time, transmitting a second removal indication by operation of one or more computer processors when executing the computer-readable program code, wherein the second removal indication emulates that the first switch unit is physically removed from the distributed switch, wherein the first switch unit is not physically removed from the distributed switch; and computer-readable program code configured to, responsive to receiving an indication to vary on the first switch unit: transmit an add indication to the host to establish a connection between the host and the first switch unit.