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SunGate Failover System

SunGate appliances is equipped with a hardware "failover" module that can eliminate the "single point of failure" concerns with this type of product, as well as enhance the maintainability of the product.

When powered down, the appliance is in the "failover" state, so traffic will flow when wired properly. Even as the machine is powered up, the ports remained connected until the SunGate is ready to process traffic. Then the ports are "enabled", at which point they act as 2 independent ethernet ports. Traffic is then bridged by the bandwidth management software normally, in the same way it does if you are using 2 regular ethernet cards without hardware failover.

The appliance monitors its "health" via a software watchdog timer, which must inform the failover hardware periodically that it is in good working order. If the failover mechanism does not get this "message" (which could be caused by the machine locking up or a software or OS failure), it will then connect the ports allowing traffic to flow of your network as if the SunGate appliance wasn't there.