High Availability - HA Heartbeat Backup

[DawgsFan]

High Availability - HA Heartbeat Backup

If HA1 and HA1-backup are configured with data plane ports then Heartbeat backup is needed. If Management port is used as HA1 bkup then Heartbeat backup is not needed.

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[ChrisSutton]

Why, though? What's the reason that using management ports for a Control Link makes Heartbeat Backup not needed, or put another way, why does not using a management ports for a Control Link make Heartbeat Backup advantageous or necessary?

[almargaris]

@ChrisSutton Great question Chris. 

The reason for this is in the event the interface used for HA1 goes down there's an alternate interface (management backup) to send heartbeats and keep HA stable. Think of the scenario where you have a layer 2 switch connected in between two active/passive members and the switch loses power, HA1 would go down and you would have a split brain scenario for HA.

In summary, it's for increasing HA stability depending on how your network is setup.

Please feel free to read more about it on the High Availability documentation. 

[JoeKwok]

What is the result if Heartbeat Backup is enabled AND Management port is used as HA1 backup?

[AyrtonCJR]

Does anyone know if I am able to see the same status information I see on the HA Widget for the 'Heartbeat backup' up or down, via the cli as a show HA .... ... status command of some sort? I am not finding it via # show high-availability all or # show high-availability state.

I need to be able to find this information in a large batch of firewalls for an audit. Thanks.