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High Availability
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SonicOS 5.8.1 Administrator Guide
High Availability provides a way to share SonicWALL licenses between two SonicWALL
security appliances when one is acting as a high availability system for the other. To use this
feature, you must register the SonicWALL appliances on MySonicWALL as Associated
Products. Both appliances must be the same SonicWALL model.
Benefits of High Availability
High Availability provides the following benefits:
• Increased network reliability – In a High Availability configuration, the Backup appliance
assumes all network responsibilities when the Primary unit fails, ensuring a reliable
connection between the protected network and the Internet.
• Cost-effectiveness – High Availability is a cost-effective option for deployments that
provide high availability by using redundant SonicWALL security appliances. You do not
need to purchase a second set of licenses for the Backup unit in a High Availability Pair.
• Virtual MAC for reduced convergence time after failover – The Virtual MAC address
setting allows the HA Pair to share the same MAC address, which dramatically reduces
convergence time following a failover. Convergence time is the amount of time it takes for
the devices in a network to adapt their routing tables to the changes introduced by high
availability. By default, the Virtual MAC address is provided by the SonicWALL firmware
and is different from the physical MAC address of either the Primary or Backup appliances.