Abstract: The open programmable network element architecture which based on Forwarding Element (FE) and Control Element (CE) Separation (ForCES) is an important trend of the next generation network element. How to realize the high availability and flexibility of the next generation network has presently become the important research work. This study studied on the high-availability requirement of CE in detail, including some rules and methods of ensuring backup data and brought forward the detection mechanism based on the heartbeat which is benefit for finding out the CE fault. In brief, the contributions are to (a) Analyze and improve the task of taking over methods between the CEs, (b) Realize this high-availability overall software architecture on the basis of analysis and studies of above techniques and (c) Test the high-availability of ForCES CE and the effectiveness of methods is finally validated by simulations.