Patent ID: 7587623

Claim:
A method for recovering an application state of an electronic trading system ( 10 ) including a first server ( 16 a ) and a second server ( 16 b ) after a failure of both of said servers, wherein said first server functions as a primary server for receiving incoming messages of said system and said second server functions as a secondary server during operation of said system, wherein each incoming message is processed in both servers, comprising the steps of: initiating ( 20 ; 30 ; 40 ) a recovery procedure after a failure of both servers by substantially simultaneously restarting said first server and said second server; after restarting, in each of the first and second servers, identifying ( 22 ) a last message of the first and second servers; after identifying, exchanging information about the messages between the servers, the exchanged information comprising sequence numbers for uniquely identifying the messages; comparing the sequence numbers, and selecting ( 24 ) the first server as the primary server when the comparison of said sequence numbers results in a determination that the first server has a message having a highest sequence number than the sequence number of the message of the second server, and selecting the second server as the primary server when the comparison results in a determination that the second server has a message having a highest sequence number than the sequence numbers of the message of the first server.