Heartbeat Packet Parameters

The Heartbeat packet parameters are described in the table below. The device sends a heartbeat packet to ensure that the far-end is passing traffic.

Heartbeat Packet Parameters

Parameter

Description

[HeartBeatIntervalmsec]

Defines the delay (in msec) between consecutive heartbeat packets.

The parameter is used when the device operates in High-Availability (HA) mode. The active and redundant devices send heartbeat (keep-alive) messages to one another to check reachability. They send the keep-alive messages "in bulks" (from multiple local ports) every 100 msec to create multiple flows in the network equipment (e.g., switches or SDN network). If there is no reply from the active device to the sent heartbeat packets within this timeout (HA timeout), the active device is considered unreachable, triggering an HA switchover to the redundant device.

The parameter is measured in 10-msec units, meaning that whatever value you define for the parameter, the timeout is the value multiplied by 10. For example, if you configure the parameter to 100 (i.e., 100 x 10 = 1,000 msec = 1 second), an HA switchover happens after a 1-second loss of keep-alive messages. You can increase it, for example, to 300 (i.e., 300 x 10 = 3,000 msec = 3 seconds), which means that a switchover happens after a 3-second loss of keep-alive messages

The valid value range is 100 to 6,000 (i.e., 1 minute). The default is 100.

Note: For the parameter to take effect, a device restart is required.