1. A system comprising: a forwarding component that forwards packets; a classifying component that classifies packets and is capable of classifying packets for the forwarding component; a session tracking component that tracks sessions for at least one of the forwarding component and the classifying component; a health and load handling component that is capable of providing health and load information to the classifying component; and a high availability mechanism that provides detection of, handling of, and recovery from a failure of one or more of the forwarding component, the classifying component, the session tracking component, and the health and load handling component.