Pix fail-over questions
I have two questions regarding Pix fail-over.
Are there any special considerations for upgrading the code on a Pix in fail-over mode? I have 2 515Es running 6.3(4) that I'd like to upgrade ideally to 7.0.4 at 6.3(5) at the least. I inherited these Pixs in their current fail-over state so I don't have the benefit of setting them up. I'm short on Pix fail-over experience. I'm assuming that I'll have to take the standby Pix offline manually (fail-over cable and inside interface), upgrade it, and then reconnect it while disconnecting the first Pix. I need to accomplish this with minimal downtime, ideally 0 downtime. A phone system resides behind these Pixs. Can anyone point me to any docs that they've found useful on Pix fail-over configurations?
My second question deals with the details of how a pair of fail-over Pixs operate when one of their inside or outside interfaces goes down. Current the outside interface of each Pix is connected to a stack of
3750s at one site (diffent 3750 for each Pix) and 2 independant 2950s at another site (one Pix in each switch, same vlan on both). Their inside interfaces wrap back around to those same switches and are in a different vlan. Horrible design and I'm working on fixing that. I need to do code upgrades on the switches at both sites. If I take down the switch connected to the standby Pix I expect the active Pix to continue operating like normal. What happens if I take down the switch connected to the active Pix? I would expect fail-over to immediately promote the standby Pix and to continue passing traffic. Exactly how long would this take? If it's more than a couple seconds and the telephone switches will throw out errors. I've been reading up on fail-over but I'd like some real-world opinions on times and procedures.Thanks J
read more and respond »Posted 5 years ago by J in Cisco Systems
