Introduction

Overview

Redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system, usually in the form of a backup or fail-safe.

For our Management Servers, there are two components: primary and alternate. They both run similar software, but the output from the alternate remains inactive during normal operation. The primary monitors itself and periodically sends an activity message to the alternate as long as everything is OK. All outputs from the primary stop, including the activity message, when the primary detects a fault. The alternate activates its output and takes over from the primary after a brief delay when the activity message ceases. Errors in voting logic can cause both outputs to be active or inactive at the same time, or cause outputs to flutter on and off.

A more reliable form of voting logic involves an odd number of three devices or more. This is ustilised in our MongoDB Database Replication. All perform identical functions and the outputs are compared by the voting logic. The voting logic establishes a majority when there is a disagreement, and the majority will act to deactivate the output from other device(s) that disagree. A single fault will not interrupt normal operation.