CIO OPINION powerful enough to detect and resolve a variety of lowlevel problems that could , if left unattended , grow into bigger problems that eventually trigger a failover to the secondary infrastructure . If the HA solution detects a stalled queue or a memory fault , for example , and has the ability to resolve that proactively , the HA solution can help deliver uninterrupted access to your critical applications and databases without even having to perform a full failover .
Your antivirus solution , however , may interpret the HA solution ’ s effort to restart a queue or clear memory as an attack . It may then quarantine critical components of the HA solution , thereby rendering it unable to trigger an orchestrated failover if one becomes necessary .
Moreover , if your antivirus system does this silently , you may not know that your HA solution is compromised until your production system does go dark and that production system does not fail over to your secondary infrastructure ( at which point access to your critical applications is put on hold for an indeterminate period of time ).
Similar challenges arise in configuring the firewalls and access control lists protecting your critical applications .
Your IT organization is going to want to close as many ports as can be closed and ensure that the bare minimum number of people and systems can gain root or even low-level access to your critical applications . At the same time , different components of an HA solution are going to need low-level access to your critical applications and databases in order to ensure ongoing access to those applications and databases .
Unless the correct ports are open to the HA solutions , they will not be able to detect and respond to events that might otherwise cause your crucial applications to go dark .
These examples constitute only a few of the areas where security and HA considerations can conflict . None of these challenges are insoluble . It is possible to ensure both security and high availability , but your IT teams need to develop a thorough understanding of how security and HA solutions work – and how they can be configured to work together .
Communication amongst personnel working on security and HA is critical , as is the cultivation of strong relationships with IT partners who understand the interplay of these solutions and who can share their expertise to ensure that the solutions you deploy will effectively support your organization ’ s technical needs and goals . p
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