Standby/Failover E-IPA-HX Card

EHX v. 13.0 and above.

An E-IPA-HX card can be configured for N+1 redundancy. A redundant/standby card will take over from a failed card after 2 minutes of failure.

You can configure a standby card to take over from all or any combination of cards in a matrix.

You will also decide which connection types (IVC and/or AoIP) trigger the switching/failover state. These options are known as Redundancy Modes.

All IP details and configuration are transferred to the standby card on switching. On failover, the standby card will reboot. When it comes up, it sends out an ARP ping message to the gateway. This tells the network switch to update its local ARP table with the MAC address of the new device.

Note: The main and redundant E-IPA cards must have matching licenses and LAN port wiring.

Network Setup for Redundancy

An E-IPA card has up to six configurable LAN connectors. When configuring an E-IPA card for redundancy, the LAN connectors on the redundant card must match the configuration on the cards it takes over from. For example, if the active card has admin on LAN 1 and AES67 on LAN 3, the redundant card must have the same configuration and cables.

The redundant card will not be able to take over from any card that does not have a matching LAN configuration and network cable connections.

See Network Setup for the E-IPA-HX Card for details of how to configure the LAN connectors on the card.

Note: When the redundant card is not in use (when the failover state has not been triggered), only the admin connection will be active. Therefore, until the standby card takes over from the main card, you will not see the IVC or AES connection indicator lights on the standby card.

Redundant Card Admin IP Address

When the standby card is not active it needs an admin IP address for the administrative purposes of licensing and upgrading the card. Therefore, you will set admin IP addressing details when you configure the card. This is usually configured on LAN 1. These details will be over-written when the card enters an active state (when the switch to take over from another card is triggered).

ClosedRedundancy modes

The E-IPA card supports two different IP connection types:

  • IVC . IVC connections are non AES67 connections such as; Legacy V-Series panels, Agent IC and LQ connected over IP.

  • AoIP. AoIP connections are all AES67 connections such as; IP transceivers (FS-Edge 5 GHz and FreeSpeak II 1.9 GHz), IrisX panels and SMPTE/AES67.

The redundant/standby card can take over on a range of IP connection type failures:

  • No Redundancy
    • The card will not execute a switch in any circumstances

  • IVC or AoIP (default setting)

    • The card will treat no IVC connections (for 2 mins) or no AoIP (for 2 mins) as a failure and will execute a switch to a supporting standby card

  • IVC only

    • The card will treat no IVC connections (for 2 mins) as a failure and will execute a switch to a supporting standby card

  • AoIP only.

    • The card will treat no AoIP connections (for 2 mins) as a failure and will execute a switch to a supporting standby card

Licensing on a Redundant E-IPA Card

You must purchase licenses for your redundant card up to and equal to the licenses on the cards you want it to take over from. For example, if one of your cards has a 64 port license and 8 SMPTE streams, your redundant card must be licensed for 64 ports and 8 SMPTE streams. The redundant card will not be able to take over if it does not have sufficient licenses.

For more information see the E-IPA-HX Licensing Guide, available from the Eclipse-HX Knowledge Center.

Testing the Redundant Card

Once you have set up the standby card, the failover state can be tested. On the main card or cards:

  • Pull out one of the cables connected to a port that has been configured as a trigger for the failover state

  • Reset. When you reset a card, the audio connections on it will go down while the card reboots, causing the standby card to take over.

Upgrading Cards when a Redundant Card is Installed

When a redundant/failover card is installed on your matrix, you are strongly advised to upgrade active E-IPA cards using the matrix (EHX), rather than the interface card CCM.

For more information see Upgrade the E-IPA-HX Card