Hitless Stacking Switchover

Hitless stacking switchover is a manually-controlled (CLI-driven) or automatic switchover of the active controller and standby controller without reloading the stack and without any packet loss to the services and protocols that are supported by hitless stacking. A switchover is activated by the stack switch-over CLI command. A switchover may also be activated by the priority command, depending on the configured priority value.

By default, hitless switchover is allowed on systems with FastIron release 08.0.20 or later installed, as long as hitless failover is configured, and the priority of the two controllers is the same. Hitless switchover behavior is described in Hitless stacking behavior.

Hitless switchover can be used by a system administrator to perform maintenance on a controller that has been functioning as the active controller.

For a description of the events that occur during a hitless stacking switchover, refer to What Happens During a Hitless Stacking Switchover or Failover.

For a description of how hitless stacking switchover affects major system functions, refer to Supported Hitless Stacking Protocols and Services.

For examples of hitless stacking switchover operation, refer to Hitless Stacking Switchover Examples.