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8 Hardware Failover
A reliable Internet connection has become a mission critical requirement for today's modern business.
Internet connections today are used for accessing important real-time data for decision-making, reaching
E-commerce customers, connecting with business partners, and extending communications across the
distributed enterprise.
The loss of this mission critical connection can have serious, and sometimes disastrous, consequences
on an organization.The following applications are examples of the mission critical nature of an Internet
connection today:
•
An Internet connection that provides customer access to an e-commerce site. In this case, connection
downtime results in lost revenue.
•
An Internet connection used to connect to business partners or an application service provider (ASP).
Connection downtime can significantly disrupt business activities.
•
Internet connections that provide access to critical resources for remote offices,
telecommuters and mobile workers. Connection downtime can result in lower productivity for remote
users.
Given the critical nature of many Internet connections, each element of the Internet connection needs to
be highly reliable. SonicWALL Hardware Failover feature adds to the award-winning SonicWALL Internet
security solution by assuring a highly reliable and secure connection to the Internet.
SonicWALL Hardware Failover eliminates network downtime by allowing the configuration of two
SonicWALL appliances (one primary and one backup) as a Hardware Failover pair. In this configuration,
the backup SonicWALL monitors the primary SonicWALL and takes over operation in the event of a
failure. This ensures a secure and reliable connection between the protected network and the Internet.
Before Configuring Hardware Failover
Before attempting to configure two SonicWALL appliances as a Hardware Failover pair, check the
following requirements:
•
You have two (2) identical SonicWALL Internet Security Appliances. The Hardware Failover pair
must consist of two identical SonicWALL models.
•
You have at least one (1) valid, static IP address available from your Internet Service
Provider (ISP). Two (2) valid, static IP addresses are required to remotely manage both the primary
SonicWALL and the backup SonicWALL.
Alert!
SonicWALL Hardware Failover does not support dynamic IP address assignment from your ISP.
•
Each SonicWALL in the Hardware Failover pair must have the same firmware version
installed.
•
Each SonicWALL in the Hardware Failover pair must have the same upgrades and subscriptions en-
abled. If the backup unit does not have the same upgrades and
subscriptions enabled, these functions are not supported in the event of a failure of the primary Son-
icWALL.
•
All SonicWALL ports being used must be connected together with a hub or switch. If each SonicWALL
has a unique WAN IP Address for remote management, the WAN IP Addresses must be in the same
subnet.
Tip!
The two SonicWALL s in the Hardware Failover pair send "heartbeats" on their X5 Interfaces, which is
a dedicated Hardware Failover link.
Hardware Failover Page 137
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