Active-passive SLBC with two FortiController-5103Bs and two chassis

This example describes how to setup an active-passive SLBC cluster consisting of two FortiGate-5000 chassis, two FortiController-5103Bs, and six FortiGate-5001Bs acting as workers, three in each chassis. This SLBC configuration can have up to seven redundant 10Gbit network connections.

The FortiControllers operate in active-passive HA mode for redundancy. The FortiController in chassis 1 slot 1 will be configured to be the primary unit, actively processing sessions. The FortiController in chassis 2 slot 1 becomes the secondary unit. If the primary unit fails the secondary unit resumes all active sessions.

All networks in this example have redundant connections to both FortiControllers and redundant heartbeat and base control and management links are created between the FortiControllers using their front panel B1 and B2 interfaces.

This example also includes a FortiController session sync connection between the FortiControllers using the FortiController F4 front panel interface (resulting in the SLBC having a total of seven redundant 10Gbit network connections). (You can use any fabric front panel interface.)

Heartbeat and base control and management traffic uses VLANs and specific subnets. So the switches and network components used must be configured to allow traffic on these VLANs and you should be aware of the subnets used in case they conflict with any connected networks.

This example sets the device priority of the FortiController in chassis 1 higher than the device priority of the FortiController in chassis 2 to make sure that the FortiController in chassis 1 becomes the primary FortiController for the cluster