The High Availability Environment

A Management High Availability Deployment and configuration mode of two Check Point Management Servers, in which they automatically synchronize the management databases with each other. In this mode, one Management Server is Active, and the other is Standby. Acronyms: Management HA, MGMT HA. environment includes:

One Active Security Management Server Dedicated Check Point server that runs Check Point software to manage the objects and policies in a Check Point environment within a single management Domain. Synonym: Single-Domain Security Management Server.
One or more Standby Security Management Server Check Point Single-Domain Security Management Server or a Multi-Domain Security Management Server.

For full redundancy, the active management server at intervals synchronizes its database with the secondary server or servers.

Active vs. Standby

In a standard High Availability configuration there is one Active server at a time. The administrator uses the Active server manage the High Availability configuration. The Active server automatically synchronizes the standby server(s) at regular intervals. You can open a Standby server only in Read Only mode. If the Active server fails, you can initiate a changeover to make a Standby server become the Active server. If communication with the Active server fails, there may be more than one Active server. This is called Collision Mode.

Primary Server vs. Secondary Server

The sequence in which you install management servers defines them as Primary or Secondary. The first management server installed becomes the Primary active server. When you install more Security Management Servers, you define them as Secondary. Secondary servers are Standby servers by default.

Important notes about backing up and restoring in Management High Availability environment:

To back up and restore a consistent environment, make sure to collect and restore the backups and snapshots from all servers in the High Availability environment at the same time.
Make sure other administrators do not make changes in SmartConsole Check Point GUI application used to manage a Check Point environment - configure Security Policies, configure devices, monitor products and events, install updates, and so on. until the backup operation is completed.

For more information:

About Gaia Check Point security operating system that combines the strengths of both SecurePlatform and IPSO operating systems. Backup and Gaia Snapshot, see the R81 Gaia Administration Guide.
About the "migrate export" and "migrate import" commands, see the R81 CLI Reference Guide.
About the "mds_backup" and "mds_restore" commands, see the R81 CLI Reference Guide.
About Virtual Machine Snapshots, see the vendor documentation.