Patent ID: 7916854

Claim:
A method of controlling a local process that forms part of a first processing entity, said first processing entity maintaining a plurality of associations with a plurality of remote processes in a second processing entity, said method comprising the steps of: receiving at a computer executing the local process a failure message from a remote process in the second processing entity indicating a fault affecting an association linking the local process with that remote process; queuing, at the computer executing the local process, data messages destined for that remote process, the data messages queued according to the order in which they are received at the computer; controlling the transmission of an acknowledgement of the failure message at the computer executing the local process so that data messages pending on the association are ensured as received in sequence before acknowledgement of the failure message; and initiating a traffic diversion to set up an alternate path between said local process of said first processing entity and said second processing entity for queued data messages, with said initiating comprising testing of a data type value of the queued data messages and, based on the data type value test result, either finding an alternate local process for transmitting queued data messages to the remote process or forwarding data to an alternate remote process serving the remote processing entity.