a network node the network node 400 may be the same as the nodes r1 r11 the network node 400 may include a processor 430 data storage 440 and i o interface 450 and an i o communication channel 460 the processor 430 may control the operation of the network node 400 and cooperate with the data storage 440 and the i o interface 450 via a system bus as used herein the term u201c processor u201d will be understood to encompass a variety of devices such as microprocessors field programmable gate arrays fpgas application specific integrated circuits asics and other similar processing devices the data storage 440 may store program and other data such as various programs and data useful in implementing the functions described above for example the data storage 440 may store network node instructions for performing various functions carried out by the network node the data storage 440 may also store backup timer rules and timer data 424 the timer rules and timer data 424 may be used as described above with respect to fig3 the i o interface 450 may cooperate with the processor 430 to support communications over one or more communication channels for example the i o interface 450 may include a user interface such as a keyboard and monitor or a network interface such as one or more ethernet ports the i o communication channel 460 may include various types of communication protocols and physical layers in order to manage the network in some embodiments the processor 430 may include resources such as processors or cpu cores the i o interface 450 may include any suitable network interfaces or the data storage 440 may.