This sample deployment is used in many of the examples presented in this chapter.Įach cluster member has three interfaces: one external interface, one internal interface, and one for synchronization. The following diagram illustrates a two-member ClusterXL cluster, showing the cluster virtual IP addresses and member physical IP addresses. Cluster interface addresses do not belong to any real machine interface.
Example ClusterXL TopologyĬlusterXL uses unique physical IP and MAC addresses for each cluster member, and a virtual IP addresses for the cluster itself. All connections are shared between the remaining gateways without interruption.
If any individual Check Point gateway in the cluster becomes unreachable, transparent failover occurs to the remaining operational machines in the cluster, thus providing High Availability. In Load Sharing configurations, all functioning machines in the cluster are active, and handle network traffic (Active/Active operation). Load SharingĬlusterXL Load Sharing distributes traffic within a cluster of gateways so that the total throughput of multiple machines is increased. The glue that binds the machines in a ClusterXL cluster is the Cluster Control Protocol (CCP), which is used to pass synchronization and other information between the cluster members. The cluster members synchronize their connection and status information across a secure synchronization network.