CHAPT ER
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Cisco ASA 5500 Series Configuration Guide using ASDM
67
Configuring Active/Active Failover
This chapter describes how to configure Active/Active failover and includes the following sections:
Information About Active/Active Failover, page67-1
Licensing Requirements for Active/Active Failover, page67-6
Prerequisites for Active/Active Failover, page67-6
Guidelines and Limitations, page67-7
Configuring Active/Active Failover, page67-8
Monitoring Active/Active Failover, page67-18
Feature History for Active/Active Failover, page67-19

Information About Active/Active Failover

This section describes Active/Active failover. This section includes the following topics:
Active/Active Failover Overview, page67-1
Primary/Secondary Status and Active/Standby Status, page67-2
Device Initialization and Configuration Synchronization, page67-3
Command Replication, page67-3
Failover Triggers, page67-4
Failover Actions, page 67-4

Active/Active Failover Overview

Active/Active failover is only available to ASAs in multiple context mode. In an Active/Active failover
configuration, both ASAs can pass network traffic.
In Active/Active failover, you divide the security contexts on the ASA into failover groups. A failover
group is simply a logical group of one or more security contexts. You can create a maximum of two
failover groups. The admin context is always a member of failover group1. Any unassigned security
contexts are also members of failover group 1 by default.
The failover group forms the base unit for failover in Active/Active failover. Interface failure monitoring,
failover, and active/standby status are all attributes of a failover group rather than the unit. When an
active failover group fails, it changes to the standby state while the standby failover group becomes