About high availability
You can deploy two identical Sophos Firewall devices in a high availability (HA) cluster in active-passive or active-active modes.
You can configure HA in hardware, virtual, and software appliances. You can also manage an HA cluster from Sophos Central.
HA provides failover in both modes and load-balancing in active-active mode, offering redundancy and preventing a single point of failure. This enables you to minimize downtime and disruption to your network.
Platforms and requirements
You can configure HA on firewalls using the following platforms:
- Hardware appliances: XGS Series firewalls
- Virtual platforms, such as Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware, and Nutanix Prism. See Cloud, virtual, and software appliances.
- Software on custom hardware
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Requirements
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Deployment in network
HA modes
Active-passive HA delivers redundancy and minimizes downtime. Active-active HA delivers higher throughput and redundancy.
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Active-passive
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Active-active
Deploy and centrally manage
You can connect HA devices to access-layer switches, such as Sophos Switches, in your network. See Configure access layer switches for XGS HA.
You can centrally manage Sophos Firewall devices and Sophos Switches from Sophos Central.
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Sophos Switches
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Sophos Central