Symantec Security 5600 Series, Security 5400 Series,Clientless VPN 4400 Series, Administration Manual

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Chapter
14
High availability and load
balancing using clusters
This chapter includes the following topics:
■
About clustering
■
How clusters work
■
Creating a new cluster with the Cluster Wizard
■
Changing cluster settings
■
Managing clusters
■
Updating interfaces in a cluster configuration
■
Monitoring cluster status
■
Cluster interactions with other security gateway features
■
Backing up and restoring cluster configurations
■
Troubleshooting cluster configuration problemsYou can continue configuring the cluster, but the
member experiencing problems is not added. You can fix the problems and add the member at a
later time.
About clustering
The security gateway uses clustering technology to ensure high availability (HA) and increase
performance through load balancing (LB). In a cluster, two to eight security gateways are grouped
together and instructed to work as a single entity. All cluster members share the state information of
all other cluster members, and any cluster member can immediately assume and support a connection
for a failed cluster member. Additionally, you can distribute work evenly among all cluster members.
High availability and load balancing is a feature that is not automatically enabled when you run the
System Setup Wizard. If you have not enabled this feature, you need to do so before trying to set up
clusters.
How clusters work
The security gateways use many components to manage a cluster. These components include:
■
Virtual IP addresses and VIP owners
■
Authoritative cluster member
■
Heartbeat network