TABLE OF CONTENTS Check Point has an extensive set of clustering options which have evolved throughout the years. In the early days, only high availability was available, and full load balancing required the use of third-party software such as StoneBeat FullCluster or RainWall. Today, Check Point offers a clustering feature set called ClusterXL, which has both high availability and load-sharing capabilities. ClusterXL also handles state synchronization to maintain connections in case of a failover.
In addition to Check Point s ClusterXL, several OPSEC-compliant third-party clustering solutions are available. This chapter details the ClusterXL feature set and introduces some of these third-party clustering solutions. Whether you have a large or a small network, the fact that you rely on uptime to allow your customers access to your protected applications is critical. In fact, any sort of network downtime is almost unacceptable today. Fortunately, as demand for high availability increases, it is becoming easier to set up this capability and ensure optimal network performance for your customers.
ClusterXL is a software-based solution for Check Point gateways that offers both active/ passive and active/active high availability. It operates in two different modes. In High Availability mode, one gateway is active while the other is passive. In this sense, active means the gateway is processing traffic, and passive means the gateway is only in a backup state and is not processing packets. In Load Sharing mode, both firewalls are active in the sense that they are both processing traffic at the...
