Technical Brief: Implementing Failover Services

Implementing Failover ServicesWhy Implement Failover Services?Today’s networks require virtually no operational downtime for every device. To guarantee continuity of service, a fail over mechanism is required. The Blue Coat ProxySG™ offers the capability to implement a redundant configuration of Blue Coat secure proxy appliances. Fail over allows a secondary ProxySG appliance to take over if a fist appliance fails, providing redundancy to the network through a master/client relationship.

How to Install Failover Services on the ProxySGThere are two steps to implement fail over services:

1 Create a fail over address

2 Define the group settings

Step 1 – Create a fail over address

To create a Failover address, use the Blue Coat GUI Management Console, select the Network option, Advanced, then select the Failover tab.

Click on New and type the failover address that will be shared by both the ProxySG appliances. You can use a physical address of one of the ProxySG appliances if you like. In this case the appliance with the physical address will be known as the master.

Technical Brief: Implementing Failover Services

Note: you will need to perform this operation on both the ProxySG appliances

Step 2 – Define the group settings

Enable group settings and define a multicast address (e.g. 224.0.0.1). Additional parameters can also be configured such as the advertisement interval, priority, and so on.

Click OK and click on Apply.

Technical Brief: Implementing Failover Services

Note: you will need to perform this operation on both the ProxySG appliances

Monitoring Failover ServicesTo monitor fail over services, via the Blue Coat Management Console, Select Statistics, and the Failover option. You can then view the state of the appliance for the defined Failover Service.

ConclusionThe Blue Coat ProxySG provides hardware redundancy for continuous uptime. The Blue Coat Management Console provides the ability to define and monitor a failover service for your secure proxy appliances.

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Blue Coat Systems, Inc. 1.866.30.BCOAT // 1.408.220.2200 Direct // 1.408.220.2250 Fax // www.bluecoat.comhowever, Blue Coat Systems, Inc. assumes no responsibility for its use, Blue Coat is a registered trademark of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and worldwide. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. v.TB-FAILOVER_SERVICES-v2-0408