Patent ID: 8014274

Claim:
A method comprising: storing state information within a primary control unit of a network device, wherein different portions of the state information of the primary control unit represent a state of a different one of a plurality of components of the network device; storing a copy of the state information of the primary control unit within a standby control unit of the network device; communicating first state data update messages from the primary control unit to the plurality of different components within the network device to update the state of the components, wherein each of the first state data update messages include corresponding state change identifiers; communicating second state data messages from the primary control unit to the standby control unit to update the state information within the standby control unit, wherein each of the second state data update messages corresponds to one of the first state data update messages and includes the same state change identifier as the corresponding one of the first state data update messages; upon an occurrence of a failover event from the primary control unit to the standby control unit, determining with the standby control unit which of the portions of the state information stored by the standby control unit is out of synchronization with respect to the state of the components; and communicating only a subset of the second state data messages from the standby control unit to one or more of the components to reset the state information stored within the components to a condition that matches the state information stored within the standby control unit without sending to the components all of the state information stored in the standby control unit, wherein the subset of second state data messages corresponds to those portions of the state information stored by the standby control unit that are out of synchronization with the state of the corresponding components.