Firewall Failover


The failover feature lets you connect two identical firewall units with a special failover cable to achieve a fully redundant firewall solution. The table below summarizes the support for the failover feature provided by different firewall models.

Model Support for Failover
Firewall 501 Not supported
Firewall 506 Not supported
Firewall 515 Requires additional license
Firewall 525 Ships with full support
Firewall 535 Ships with full support

When implementing failover one unit functions as the active unit, while the other assumes the role of the standby unit. Both units need the same configuration and run the same software version. The failover cable that connects two firewall units allows the two units to synchronize configuration and session state information so that if the active unit fails, the standby unit can assume its role without any interruption in network connectivity or security.