A process is disclosed for detecting the availability of components of a redundant communication system in which hardware components are available at least in duplicate, the redundant system components taking over the function of the previously active operating system components when one or more hardware components break down. The system components operate together in resource groups and each resource group can run on at least two hardware components. In order to permit system component availability to be detected, one resource group operates actively on precisely one single hardware component and the at least one redundant resource group runs on at least one additional system component in a standby mode, the data in the active resource group being automatically replicated.