Abstract: Method and apparatus providing intelligent fault recovery are presented. The apparatus includes line card equipment separating control plane components from data plane components enabling a control plane reset while the data plane remains operational at least to the extent that content conveyed in respect of currently provisioned services continues to be processed therethrough. Detected faults are categorized in accordance with a group of severity levels and recovery behavior is specified for each fault severity level. As a guiding principle of the engineered failure mitigation response provided, the control plane of a fault affected line card is reset in an attempt to mitigate an experienced fault condition; the entire line card being reset only as a last resort and only to restore service.