Failover System Defined

A failover system is an operational mode which has the consistent capability to seamlessly and automatically transfer the operations of an organizations system (processor, network, database, server, or applications) to a secondary system for a reliable backup when a system is temporarily shut down due to failure or scheduled down time.

A failover is an integral part of mission-critical systems and as such must be able to be consistently available and to be operated as a total redundancy that runs simultaneously with a primary system.

The purpose of a failover is to eliminate the impact on end-users when a primary system is subjected to a disruption. The procedure of a failover involves automatically offloading tasks to a standby system component.The end-user should not be inconvenienced when a failure has occurred, as their requests will be redirected to the failover system or secondary system that mimics the operations of the primary system.

This system relies on a direct connection to communicate with the primary system. This connection is called a “heartbeat.” The heartbeat needs to sends pulses every few minutes from the primary system to the failover system. As long as the pulse stays consistent the failover will remain dormant.If the regular interval of the heartbeat connection is interrupted, the failover system will initiate and assume the operations for all of the primary system’s work.

Two major benefits of a failover is:

• Protection from Downtime
• Prevents the Loss of Revenue

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