- Failover is a redundancy mode
- If primary policy server fails, a backup takes over
- Failover is the default mode when a trusted host is configured with a list of policy servers:
- first policy server in the list is the primary.
- if current server fails, it is marked as unavailable; trusted host moves to next available server in the list.
- if a failed server recovers, it is returned to its original list location
- NOTE: Both failover and load balancing require common policy and key stores.
Failover is a redundancy mode. If the primary Policy Server fails, there is a backup Policy Server to take over policy operations. Failover is the default operation mode. When the Trusted Host initializes, it operates in Failover mode.
In this mode, every Trusted Host request is delivered to the first Policy Server in the list. If that Policy Server does not respond, the Trusted Host marks it unavailable and redirects the request to the next Policy Server in the list. If a previously failed Policy Server recovers, SiteMinder returns it to its original place in the list.
Trusted host to policy server failover is configured in the trusted host’s Host Configuration Object. The object shown above only lists a single policy server, meaning there is no failover redundancy. To add additional policy servers, Edit the PolicyServer parameter.
This diagram shows the Host Configuration Object dialog, which contains the configuration for any trusted host assigned to this object. In this case, the PolicyServer parameter contains a multi-value list of policy server IP addresses and the EnableFailOver parameter is defaulted to YES. The first policy server in the list is the primary server. If it fails, the trusted host would attempt to establish communications with the next server in the list.
