Load Balancing vs. Failover in SiteWALL

Overview

SiteWALL, your digital bodyguard, supports two distinct traffic-management capabilities: load balancing and failover. While related, they solve different problems, and understanding the difference helps you choose the right configuration for your infrastructure — whether that's a Primary (PR) and Disaster Recovery (DR) site, or multiple backend servers behind a single application.

Load Balancing vs. Failover: The Core Difference

	Load Balancing	Failover
What it does	Distributes traffic across two or more backend servers at the same time	Redirects traffic to a backup server only when the primary becomes unavailable
Typical mode	Active/Active	Active/Active or Active/Passive
Use case	Sharing load across always-on servers	Protecting against downtime with a standby or secondary site

Active/Active means traffic flows to both (or all) servers simultaneously. If one server fails, traffic shifts entirely to the remaining healthy server(s).

Active/Passive means traffic only flows to the primary server under normal conditions. The secondary server sits idle (passive) until the primary fails, at which point traffic switches over.

SiteWALL supports both models, and you can combine them: for example, load balance traffic across two servers while also defining a failover target in case both become unavailable.

How SiteWALL Handles Traffic Switchover

SiteWALL maps your backend IP addresses — two or more — to a single hostname and continuously monitors the health of each IP and port.

If load balancing is configured: Traffic is actively distributed across all healthy backend servers.
If a backend server fails: SiteWALL automatically detects the failure and removes the affected IP from DNS, or replaces it with a designated failover IP — without manual intervention.
If a failed server recovers: SiteWALL automatically resumes distributing traffic to it (in load-balanced configurations), or reverts traffic back to it (in Active/Passive failover configurations).

Common Scenario: Primary (PR) and DR Site Failover

Many customers with a Primary and DR site are not looking for load balancing — they want the Primary site to always handle traffic, with DR only stepping in if PR becomes unavailable. This is an Active/Passive failover configuration, and SiteWALL supports it in two ways:

Auto Failover

SiteWALL's monitoring system continuously checks the health of the Primary IP and port.

If a failure is detected, traffic is automatically redirected to the DR IP and port.
Once the Primary IP becomes healthy again, traffic automatically reverts to Primary.
No manual action is required at any point.

Manual Switchover

If you prefer direct control over when traffic moves to DR:

Log in to the SiteWALL Portal.
Update the active server IP from Primary to DR.
Traffic begins flowing to DR immediately.

This option is well suited to planned maintenance or DR drills, where you want to control the exact timing of the switch.

DNS-Based Switchover Details

Question	Answer
Is switchover automatic or manual?	Automatic (with Auto Failover configured); manual switchover is also available on request
How are DNS updates managed?	Handled automatically by SiteWALL
What is the DNS TTL?	1 minute
How long until the change is visible globally?	Approximately 1 minute, in line with the TTL

Which Configuration Is Right for You?

Need traffic shared across two always-on servers? → Load Balancing (Active/Active)
Need a DR site that only takes over during an outage, automatically? → Failover, Auto Failover mode
Need to control exactly when traffic moves to DR (e.g., planned maintenance)? → Failover, Manual Switchover mode
Need both load-balanced servers and a backup in case both fail? → SiteWALL supports combining load balancing with a failover target

For configuration assistance, reach out to your SiteWALL support@pagentra.com