inactive clone are notified of their ip addresses as a result switching system s 1b assumes an active operating state switching system s 1b is thus ready for switching operation and can take over the functions of switching system s 1 the advantage of this approach lies in the avoidance of the u201c split brain u201d scenario the interfaces of switching system s 1 are to remain in the inactive operating state even after the recovery of switching system s 1 switching system s 1 is therefore deactivated in terms of switching functions until the next switchover in order to keep the time interval of inconsistent interface states in switching system s 1b as short as possible the requests could be triggered in switching system s 1b for the solution according to the invention a total failure of the control device sc dual failure of the two halves represents no problem in particular since such a case is extremely unlikely in this embodiment variant this does not disrupt normal switching operation only the automatic switchover function of the control device sc is no longer present should a switchover become necessary during this time it can be performed manually by the network management nm similarly a disruption to the communication between switching system s 1 and control device.