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Standby UCM: Periodic Heartbeat
On HA mode, the standby UCM will check the active UCM’s status periodically by sending heartbeat
message to the active UCM. The heartbeat message is sent via the heartbeat port. If the active UCM is
under normal working condition, it will respond to the standby UCM after it receives heartbeat request from
the standby UCM. If the active UCM runs into faulty situation such as network chip becomes abnormal or
power adapter no longer works, it will stop responding heartbeat request. After the heartbeat period times
out, the standby UCM will consider the active UCM as faulty and start taking over as the active server.
The heartbeat timeout period determines how soon the standby UCM can detect active server’s failure and
switch over. By default, the heartbeat timeout period is 7 seconds. Users could modify the heartbeat timeout
period as preferred, and this will affect the detection/switchover sensitivity.
Force Switch
For the current active UCM, system admin can click on Force Switch “Switch” button on its web UI HA
settings page to force triggering the active/standby role change manually. This operation should be only
used during firmware upgrade or the active UCM encounters issue that requires force switchover to be
triggered manually.
Figure 14: Force Switch