Stateful Failover - Cisco ASA 5505 Configuration Manual

Stateless (Regular) and Stateful Failover
Table 57-1
configuration:
Table 57-1
Feature
Single Context Mode
Multiple Context Mode
Traffic Sharing Network Configurations
Unit Failover
Failover of Groups of Contexts
Failover of Individual Contexts
Stateless (Regular) and Stateful Failover
The adaptive security appliance supports two types of failover, regular and stateful. This section includes
the following topics:
•
•
Stateless (Regular) Failover
When a failover occurs, all active connections are dropped. Clients need to reestablish connections when
the new active unit takes over.
In Version 8.0 and later, some configuration elements for WebVPN (such as bookmarks and
Note
customization) use the VPN failover subsystem, which is part of Stateful Failover. You must use Stateful
Failover to synchronize these elements between the members of the failover pair. Stateless (regular)
failover is not recommended for WebVPN.

Stateful Failover

When Stateful Failover is enabled, the active unit continually passes per-connection state information to
the standby unit. After a failover occurs, the same connection information is available at the new active
unit. Supported end-user applications are not required to reconnect to keep the same communication
session.
Cisco ASA 5500 Series Configuration Guide using ASDM
57-6
provides a comparison of some of the features supported by each type of failover
Failover Configuration Feature Support
Stateless (Regular) Failover, page 57-6
Stateful Failover, page 57-6
Chapter 57 Information About High Availability
Active/Active Active/Standby
No Yes
Yes Yes
Yes No
Yes Yes
Yes No
No No
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