Installation guide

Chapter 1
Introduction
SolarWinds Failover Engine is a Windows based service specifically designed
to provide High Availability or Disaster Recovery protection for SolarWinds
Server configurations without requiring any specialized hardware.
SolarWinds Failover Engine Concepts
Architecture
SolarWinds Failover Engine software is installed on a Primary (production)
server and a Secondary (ready-standby) server. These names refer to the
Identity of the servers and never change throughout the life of the server.
Note: In this document, the term “Cluster” refers to a SolarWinds Failover
Engine Cluster. Refer to the Glossary for more information about SolarWinds
Failover Engine Clusters.
Depending on the network environment, SolarWinds Failover Engine can be
deployed in a Local Area Network (LAN) for High Availability or Wide Area
Network (WAN) for Disaster Recovery, providing the flexibility necessary to
address most network environments.
When deployed, one of the servers performs the Role of the Active server
that is visible on the Public network while the other is Passive and hidden from
the Public network but remains as a ready-standby server. The secondary
server has the same domain name, uses the same file and data structure, same
Principal (Public) network address (in a LAN), and can run all the same
applications and services as the primary server. Only one server can display
the Principal (Public) IP address and be visible on the Public network at any
given time. SolarWinds Failover Engine software is symmetrical in almost all
respects, and either the primary server or the secondary server can take the
active role and provide protected applications to the user.
SolarWinds Failover Engine provides continuous access to the passive server
simultaneously as the active server continues to service clients allowing the
passive server to be easily accessed for maintenance purposes, updating
anti-malware definition files, receiving operating system hot-fixes, updates and
patches from third-party management software, and allows use of third-party
monitoring tools.
Protection Levels
SolarWinds Failover Engine provides the following protection levels:
Introduction - 7
SolarWinds Failover Engine - Installation Guide