Leader election
Before ICE version 3.6.0, satellite server components lacked full geo-redundancy support. Although a satellite could automatically migrate from a failed ICE Server data center to an active one, there was no automated backup for the satellite itself if it failed. Administrators had no option to provision a backup. In the event of a failure, a new server had to be deployed and manually configured, which included tasks like recreating and reassigning patches to a patch server.
Starting with version 3.6.0, ICE supports the provisioning of multiple physical servers as part of a server group. Within this setup:
One member server actively operates on behalf of the group.The remaining member servers are on standby, ready to take over in case of a failure.This update eliminates previous limitations, providing robust geo-redundancy and ensuring seamless failover and backup capabilities.
Why not allow all satellite servers within a group to be active at the same time?
The nature of these servers is that they cannot operate simultaneously without producing undesired—and sometimes catastrophic—side effects. For example:
The nature of these servers is that they cannot operate simultaneously without producing undesired—and sometimes catastrophic—side effects. For example:
Server type | Side effect of multiple active |
Patch Server | Network loops and audio loss. An audio packet bridged by one server is received by the other, and bridged back to the originating server ad infinitum. This will consume large amounts of network bandwidth and result in channel cards that appear "stuck" in a receive state. |
ICE Archiver | Duplicated recordings and ops log entries. Each active archiver will archive talk-bursts resulting in duplicated records in the database. |
ICE Desktop Server | None; not applicable. Multiple ICE Desktop server may run simultaneously without negative side effects. |
ICE Reflector | Potential network loops, feedback and other audio corruption depending on the multicast architecture of the network. |
ICE Gateway | Inoperative communications. Multiple active gateways registering with the radio or telephone server will result in no gateway successfully establishing communications. |
Rallypoint | None; not applicable. Rallypoints are intended to run in an active/active configuration and form a mesh between them |