03 – HIGH AVAILABILITY: VRRP-A

VRID and Virtual MAC address

VRID
Virtual Router ID (VRID) is a logical container grouping functional configuration elements. These elements are
picked up and processed by another device in the VRRP-A set after a failover. Configuration elements grouped in
VRIDs include:
Virtual server
NAT Pool
Floating IPs

Virtual MAC address

VRRP-A assigns a virtual MAC address to each VRID with the format 021f.a000.nnnn.
The last 2 bytes of the address (nnnn) indicate the partition ID, set-id, and VRID.

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VRRP-A benefits
VRRP-A provides redundancy for up to 8 devices or L3V partitions

VRRP-A supports arbitrary N+M deployments: N is active and M is a standby device

VRRP-A supports independent VRRP-A VRID instances that span partitions on separate physical
devices

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Numbering VRIDs and the Default VRID
Default VRID

VRRP-A automatically provides VRID 0, which is the default VRID

All functional resources not explicitly assigned to user-created VRIDs are assigned to VRID 0.
VRID 0 (default) is provided on the shared partition and all private partitions.
User-created VRIDs cannot be assigned a number of 0
Maximum number of VRIDs on one device is 512, subject to CPU and memory resources.

Numbering User-created VRIDs

Admin can create additional numbered VRIDs and explicitly assign resources to them.
VRID numbers range from 0 to 31 on the shared partition and from 0 to 7 on private partitions.
Virtual chassis with multiple active devices require at least one VRID for each device.

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Active-Standby mode
Active device processes all the
production traffic

One VRID (0) is sufficient to

implement Active-Standby

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Active-Standby Failover
Peer device elected as active

Newly elected active device sends gratuitous

ARPs for virtual, floating, and NAT IPs

New sessions are served by newly elected

active device

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VRRP-A configuration
Configure VRRP-A global settings

vrrp-a common
device-id n
set-id 1
enable

Configure VRRP-A and Priority

vrrp-a vrid 0
floating-ip < ip-address >
device-context 1
blade-parameters
priority 200

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Tracking options
Configure VRRP-A failover triggers per device

vrrp-a vrid 0
device-context 1
blade-parameters
priority 200
tracking-Options
route 110.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 priority-cost 255

Priority-cost tracking usage

Value of tracked resource is subtracted from the priority of the device

Devices can be valued at 255 maximum (default is 150, minimum is 1)
Priorities can be changed administratively

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Selection of active VRRP-A device

Selection of active VRRP-A device is independent of aVCS vMaster selection

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Conditions triggering a failover
After initial selection, device remains active for a given VRID unless

Standby device stops receiving VRRP-A heartbeat from active

Priority of the active device changes below the priority of the standby
By event monitored via VRID tracking options
Administratively

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Troubleshooting VRRP-A
show vrrp-a [ config | detail ] [ ... ]
show log | inc VRRP

Dec 04 2015 14:57:14 Info [HA]:VRRP-A parid0 vrid0 state transitions: To Active 0, To
Standby 1
Dec 04 2015 14:57:14 Info [HA]:VRRP-A parid0 vrid0 state switch from 2 to 0 (Standby)
Dec 04 2015 14:57:14 Info [HA]:VRRP-A vridstart. parid0 group id 1
Dec 04 2015 14:57:14 Info [HA]:VRRP-A vridstart. parid0 group id 0
Dec 04 2015 14:56:53 Info [HA]:VRRP-A parid0 vrid0 state transitions: To Active 2, To
Standby 2
Dec 04 2015 14:56:53 Info [HA]:VRRP-A parid0 vrid0 state switch from 0 to 1 (Active)

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