A method for providing telephony services in a distributed VoIP system includes determining that a first switch is unable to communicate with a first server, where the first switch is configured to provide telephony services to a first plurality of communication devices, and the first server is configured to provide applications and data associated with the first plurality of communication devices to the first switch. The method also includes sending an adoption request from the first switch to a second server, where the second server is configured to provide applications and data associated with a second plurality of communication devices to a second switch and also configured to provide the applications and data associated with the first plurality of communication devices to the first switch. The method also includes receiving at the first switch the applications and data associated with the first plurality of communication devices from the second server.