Failover And Shared Licenses - Cisco ASA 5505 Configuration Manual

Chapter 4 Managing Feature Licenses

Failover and Shared Licenses

This section describes how shared licenses interact with failover and includes the following topics:
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Failover and Shared License Servers
This section describes how the main server and backup server interact with failover. Because the shared
licensing server is also performing normal duties as the adaptive security appliance, including
performing functions such as being a VPN gateway and firewall, then you might need to configure
failover for the main and backup shared licensing servers for increased reliability.
The backup server mechanism is separate from, but compatible with, failover.
Note
Shared licenses are supported only in single context mode, so Active/Active failover is not supported.
For Active/Standby failover, the primary unit acts as the main shared licensing server, and the standby
unit acts as the main shared licensing server after failover. The standby unit does not act as the backup
shared licensing server. Instead, you can have a second pair of units acting as the backup server, if
desired.
For example, you have a network with 2 failover pairs. Pair #1 includes the main licensing server. Pair
#2 includes the backup server. When the primary unit from Pair #1 goes down, the standby unit
immediately becomes the new main licensing server. The backup server from Pair #2 never gets used.
Only if both units in Pair #1 go down does the backup server in Pair #2 come into use as the shared
licensing server. If Pair #1 remains down, and the primary unit in Pair #2 goes down, then the standby
unit in Pair #2 comes into use as the shared licensing server (see
OL-20339-01
"Failover and Shared License Servers" section on page 4-17
"Failover and Shared License Participants" section on page 4-18
Information About Feature Licenses
Figure
Cisco ASA 5500 Series Configuration Guide using ASDM
4-1).
4-17