Systems and methods are provided for maintaining redundant master control
blade management information in switch. According to one embodiment, a
network operating system (NOS) is executed on processor elements of a
switch. A distributed messaging layer channel is created among a dynamic
set of control blades intercommunicating within the switch. Master
control blade management information is maintained on a master control
blade. Redundant master control blade management information is
maintained on one or more standby control blades by performing bulk
updates and flash updates to the redundant master control blade
management information and the standby control blades periodically
performing a consistency check against the redundant information. The
bulk updates are triggered by dynamic events. The flash updates are
triggered by individual changes to a global database. If the consistency
check fails, then the standby control blade requests a bulk update from
the master control blade.