Cisco Cisco Firepower Management Center 4000

The redundancy and resource-sharing features of the FireSIGHT System allow you to ensure continuity 
of operations and to combine the processing resources of multiple physical devices.

To ensure continuity of operations, a Defense Center high availability feature allows you to designate 
redundant DC1000, DC1500, DC3000, or DC3500 Defense Centers to manage devices. Event data 
streams from managed devices to both Defense Centers; certain configuration elements are maintained 
on both Defense Centers. If one Defense Center fails, you can monitor your network without interruption 
using the other Defense Center.

Device stacking allows you to increase the amount of traffic inspected on a network segment by 
connecting two to four physical devices in a stacked configuration. When you establish a stacked 
configuration, you combine the resources of each stacked device into a single, shared configuration.

Device clustering (sometimes called device high availability) allows you to establish redundancy of 
networking functionality and configuration data between two or more Series 3 devices or stacks. 
Clustering two or more peer devices or stacks results in a single logical system for policy applies, system 
updates, and registration. With device clustering, the system can fail over either manually or 
automatically.

In most cases, you can achieve Layer 3 redundancy without clustering devices by using SFRP. SFRP 
allows devices to act as redundant gateways for specified IP addresses. With network redundancy, you 
can configure two or more devices or stacks to provide identical network connections, ensuring 
connectivity for other hosts on the network.

You can take advantage of the X-Series platform’s load balancing and redundancy benefits (comparable 
to Cisco physical device clustering) by deploying Sourcefire Software for  X-Series as individual VAPs 
in a multi-member VAP group on the X-Series platform. You then manage these VAP groups using the 
Defense Center. For more information, see the Sourcefire Software for  X-Series Installation and 
Configuration Guide.

The FireSIGHT System’s network traffic management features allow managed devices to act as part of 
your organization’s network infrastructure. You can configure Series 3 devices to serve in a switched, 
routed, or hybrid (switched and routed) environment; to perform network address translation (NAT); and 
to build secure virtual private network (VPN) tunnels.

You can configure the FireSIGHT System in a Layer 2 deployment so that it provides packet switching 
between two or more network segments. In a Layer 2 deployment, you configure switched interfaces and 
virtual switches on managed devices to operate as standalone broadcast domains. A virtual switch uses 
the MAC address from a host to determine where to send packets.