Prerequisites for cluster peering

Connectivity requirements

Intercluster LIFs must have pair-wise full-mesh connectivity: Every intercluster LIF on the local cluster must be able to communicate with every intercluster LIF on the remote cluster.

Although it is not required, it is typically simpler to configure the IP addresses used for intercluster LIFs in the same subnet. The IP addresses can reside in the same subnet as data LIFs, or in a different subnet. The subnet used in each cluster must meet the following requirements:

• The subnet must belong to the broadcast domain that contains the ports that are used for intercluster communication.

Intercluster LIFs can have an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address.

Port requirements

You can use dedicated ports for intercluster communication, or share ports used by the data network. Ports must meet the following requirements:

• All ports that are used to communicate with a given remote cluster must be in the same IPspace.

  You can use multiple IPspaces to peer with multiple clusters. Pair-wise full-mesh connectivity is required only within an IPspace.

• The broadcast domain that is used for intercluster communication must include at least two ports per node so that intercluster communication can fail over from one port to another port.

  Ports added to a broadcast domain can be physical network ports, VLANs, or interface groups (ifgrps).

• All ports must be cabled.
• All ports must be in a healthy state.
• The MTU settings of the ports must be consistent.

Firewall requirements

Firewalls and the intercluster firewall policy must allow the following protocols:

• ICMP service
• TCP to the IP addresses of all the intercluster LIFs over the ports 10000, 11104, and 11105
• HTTPS

The default intercluster firewall policy allows access through the HTTPS protocol and from all IP addresses (0.0.0.0/0). You can modify or replace the policy if necessary.

Cluster requirements

Clusters must meet the following requirements:

• The time on the clusters in a cluster peering relationship must be synchronized within 300 seconds (5 minutes).

  Cluster peers can be in different time zones.