IronPort C170 Redundancy

[aldredbenedict]

Hi All,

I currently have 2 IronPort C170 appliances. I wanted to ask is it possible to configure them to be in hot-standby configuration? If not, what are my alternatives to provide redundancy?

[Ken Stieers]

Usually, when it comes to email, redundancy is achieved by exposing multiple boxes to the internet on port 25, setting up A records for each one, and setting up mulitple MX records, with disimilar weights if you want to direct most of the traffic to one of them.  The clustering facility afforded you in the Ironrport boxes allows you to manage them from one console, but it has no redundancy/failover implications.

You could use a network load balancer, and it can detect if one of the boxes is no longer accepting mail and then move the traffic to the other box.

Hope that helps...

Ken

[hismail1948]

Hi Ken,

If C170 IronPort does not support Hot-Standby configuration (Configuring the two boxes as one), which IronPort models can support that?

Regards

Hussein Ismail

[Ken Stieers]

None of them do.... the software is the same on the whole line

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPad App

[Alibek Ismailov]

Does this information relevant (actual) now? I read in manual about centralized management in cluster, that it can give synchronization between 2 appliances and appliance can replace another appliance in critical situation.

[Ken Stieers]

This has not changed. Central Management allows you to keep the configs in sync, but how you handle failover/redundancy is all in how you handle mail flow.

[Alibek Ismailov]

Can Management appliance help with failover/redundancy? bring some benefit

[Ken Stieers]

No.   For the ESA boxes, the SMA is used to centralize quarantines and message tracking.

Set up two boxes, set up two mx records.  If one is down, the box trying to send to it will connect to the other one.

You could use a load balancer, but thats really a waste of money.