Smart Redundancy Configuration

When Unleashed is switched to Dedicated Master mode, Unleashed supports Smart Redundancy ability as ZoneDirector.

Smart Redundancy feature allows configuration of two Dedicated Masters as a redundant pair, with one unit actively managing your network while the other serving as a backup in the standby mode and ready to take over if the first unit fails or loses power.

Each Dedicated Master will either be in an active or standby state. If the active Dedicated Master fails, the standby device becomes active. When the original active device recovers, it automatically assumes the standby state as it discovers an already active Dedicated Master on the network.

The Dedicated Master in an active state manages all the APs and client connections. The Dedicated Master in the standby state is responsible for monitoring the health of the active unit and periodically synchronizing its settings to match that of the active device. The Dedicated Master in the standby state will not respond to discovery requests from the APs, and changing from an active to standby state will release all the associated APs.

When a failover occurs, all the associated APs will continue to provide wireless service to the clients during the transition, and will associate to the newly active Dedicated master within approximately one minute.

When two Dedicated Masters are connected in a Smart Redundancy configuration, the standby Dedicated Master will send heartbeats and the active Dedicated Master will send discovery messages at 6-second intervals. After 15 seconds, if there is no response, each controller will assume disconnection from its peer, and the standby Dedicated Master will change to an active state. At this point, both the devices are in an active state and will accept join requests from the APs.

When the two Dedicated Masters are communicating again, one active Dedicated Master will change to the standby state and an auto-synchronization process will be started. A timestamp is used to determine which Dedicated Master is active and synchronizes its latest configuration changes to its peer.