Virtual Service Redundancy Protocol (VSRP) Overview


This section describes the commands for configuring the Virtual Services Redundancy Protocol (VSRP) on a Sun Secure Application Switch. VSRP is a protocol that provides redundancy support for Layer 4 through 7 services. When you configure VSRP on the Sun Secure Application Switch, two systems can exchange state and health information about each other and their redundant vSwitches. An election occurs, and one switch becomes the master system. If the master system has a failure, failover can occur and service traffic switches to the backup, or peer node. For additional information about configuring VSRP and how it works with the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), see the Sun Secure Application Switch - Configuration and Implementation Guide for v3.0 .

VSRP elections

VSRP uses an election preference to determine which node should be the master node. The node with the higher election preference becomes the master node. If the local node and the peer node have the same election preference value, VSRP uses the node identifier as a tie breaker. In this situation, the node with the higher node identifier becomes the master system. If the master node is no longer available, VSRP elects a new master from one of the configured VSRP peers.

VSRP sessions

At startup, a VSRP node tries to connect to its peer. Once they establish this session, the nodes exchange messages about their state and the services registered with VSRP. You can configure multiple VSRP sessions for redundancy purposes, so failure of a single VSRP session does not result in service failover.