High Availability (HA)
Section 8
1
Section objectives
Discuss High Availability and its options
Active-Standby mode
Active-Active mode
Configure Active-Standby HA
2
Active-Standby mode
Active AX processes all the production
traffic
Standby AX does not process any
production traffic
Standby AX mirrors all L4 session
information from Active AX
Reliability is scaled but not performance
3
Active-Standby Failover
Peer AX elected as active
Gratuitous ARPs for virtual, floating and
NAT IPs are sent
Existing mirrored sessions are picked up
by newly elected active AX
New sessions are served by newly
elected active AX
4
Active-Active mode
Both AX units process the production
traffic
Session and state information is mirrored
between both AX units
Performance is scaled in addition to
reliability
Note: Do not exceed 50% utilization on
each unit for full HA
5
Active-Active Failover
Peer AX is elected active for HA group 2
and sends gratuitous ARPs for virtual IPs,
floating IPs, and NAT IPs
Existing mirrored sessions are picked up
by peer AX
Peer AX serves requests for both HA
groups
6
Active-Standby diagram
` ` `
Clients
Router Router
VRRP, ESRP, etc.
Virtual IPs
192.168.10.1
192.168.20.1
AX1 VLAN 192 VLAN 192 AX2
HA ID 1 Eth 1, 2 Eth 1, 2 HA ID 2
HA pre-emption VE 192 – 192.168.10.2 VE 192 – 192.168.20.2 HA pre-emption
HA group 1 priority 200 HA group 1 priority 100
Floating IP 10.10.10.1 Floating IP 10.10.10.1
VIP1 VIP1
HA group 1 Eth5 / VLAN5 Eth5 / VLAN5 HA group 1
Port 80 ha-conn-mirror 10.10.30.1 10.10.30.2 Port 80 ha-conn-mirror
VIP2 VIP2
HA group 1 VLAN 10 VLAN 10 HA group 1
Port 80 ha-conn-mirror Eth 3, 4 Eth 3, 4 Port 80 ha-conn-mirror
VE 10 – 10.10.10.2 VE 10 – 10.10.10.4
Layer 2 Layer 2
Switches Switches
10.10.10.10 10.10.10.11 10.10.10.12 10.10.10.13
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Active-Active diagram
` ` `
Clients
Router Router
VRRP, ESRP, etc.
Virtual IPs
192.168.10.1
192.168.20.1
AX1 AX2
HA ID 1 VLAN 192 VLAN 192 HA ID 2
HA pre-emption Eth 1, 2 Eth 1, 2 HA pre-emption
HA group 1 priority 1 VE 192 – 192.168.10.2 VE 192 – 192.168.20.2 HA group 1 priority 255
Floating IP 10.10.10.1 Floating IP 10.10.10.1
HA group 2 priority 255 HA group 2 priority 1
Floating IP 10.10.10.100 Floating IP 10.10.10.100
VIP1 Eth5 / VLAN5 Eth5 / VLAN5 VIP1
HA group 1 10.10.30.1 10.10.30.2 HA group 1
Port 80 ha-conn-mirror Port 80 ha-conn-mirror
VIP2 VLAN 10 VLAN 10 VIP2
HA group 2 Eth 3, 4 Eth 3, 4 HA group 2
Port 80 ha-conn-mirror VE 10 – 10.10.10.2 VE 10 – 10.10.10.4 Port 80 ha-conn-mirror
Layer 2 Layer 2
Switches Switches
10.10.10.10 10.10.10.11 10.10.10.12 10.10.10.13
8
HA support
All AX integration modes support HA
Routed mode
Active-Standby, Active-Active
One-Arm mode
Active-Standby, Active-Active
Transparent mode
L2 Active-Standby
DSR mode
Active-Standby, Active-Active
9
Initial selection of Active AX
After initial selection, AX remains Active
unless :
Standby AX stops receiving HA
heartbeat from Active AX
HA interface status of the Active AX
becomes lower than Standby AX’s
VLAN-based failover is triggered
Gateway-based failover is triggered
HA pre-emption is enabled, and the
configured HA priority is changed to
be higher on the Standby AX
10
Events causing HA Failover
By default, a failover occurs only in the unavailability of real servers causes the
following cases: Standby AX to have the greater HA priority
for the VIP’s HA group
Standby AX stops receiving HA heartbeat
form Active AX By default, failover does not occur due to
HA interface state changes give the HA configuration changes to the HA
Standby AX device a better HA state than priority.
the Active AX device To enable the AX devices to failover in
VLAN-based failover is configured and the response to changes in priority, enable HA
VLAN becomes inactive. pre-emption.
Gateway-based failover is configured and
the gateway becomes unavailable.
VIP-based failover is configured and the
11
Active-Standby configuration (p. 1 of 2)
Configure HA Global settings
Identifier (AX1 = 1 , AX2 = 2)
HA Status: Enabled
(optional) HA Mirroring IP address: Remote AX Sync interface
(optional) Preempt: to failover to a higher AX when available
Group1 with priority 200 on AX1 (priority 100 on AX2)
Floating VIP for Group1: IP addresses defined on servers' gateway (VRRP-like)
(optional) IP and VLAN check (Note: IPs have to be defined as SLB-Server too)
Configure HA interfaces
All interfaces used with production traffic (+ AX interlink if exists)
Note: We recommend a dedicated direct interlink between the AX so sync traffic is off the
production network
12
Active-Standby configuration (p. 2 of 2)
Configure NAT pool HA settings
In IP Source NAT, associate the HA Group with IPv4 Pools, IPv6 Pools, NAT Ranges, or Static
NAT
Configure VIP HA settings
In VIP settings, associate HA Group with the VIP
(optional) Enable Dynamic Server Weight: Reduce the AX HA Group priority when a server is
down
(optional) Enable HA Connection Mirroring on the VIP ports: To synchronize SLB session table
(available for TCP, UDP, RTSP, FTP, MMS and SIP VIP types)
Note: For HTTP/HTTPS VIP types, the client session is terminated on the AX device. HA
Connection Mirroring is not available for these VIP types.
13
Active-Active configuration
Same as Active-Standby with two groups defined
Step2:
Group1 with priority 200 on AX1 (priority 100 on AX2)
Group2 with priority 100 on AX1 (priority 200 on AX2)
Step3:
Associate Group1 with half of the VIPs and Group2 with the second half
Step4:
Associate Group1 with the NAT Pools used by VIPs in Group1 and Group2 with the NAT Pools used
by VIPs in Group2
14
Lab
Configure HA Active/Standby mode with your neighbor
15
Section summary
We discussed High Availability modes
Active-Standby
Active-Active
We have configured Active –Standby HA mode
16
Course map
Section 0: Course Introduction
Section 1: Load Balancing Concepts
Section 2: AX Management
Section 3: FTP
Section 4: HTTP
Section 5: HTTPS
Section 6: AX Acceleration
Section 7: AX Security
Section 8: High Availability
Section 9: AX Troubleshooting
Section 10: aFleX
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