An Overview of High Availability in UniFi
UniFi’s Enterprise lineup prioritizes redundancy to ensure maximum network uptime and reliability by eliminating single points of failure.
UniFi enables High Availability across your deployment by building redundancy into every part of the network, from Gateways to Switches to Access Points, so that if one component fails, another instantly takes over.
Shadow Mode and Enterprise Firewall Redundancy
UniFi Cloud gateways like the EF-Core feature an active-passive failover mechanism known as Shadow Mode. This technology leverages Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) to monitor the health of the primary gateway, and seamlessly let the passive spare take over in the event of hardware failure. Thanks to firewall connection state tracking, the failover process will be practically invisible to your end users, ensuring that their productivity remains unaffected.
Combined with multi-WAN load balancing and hot-swappable power supplies on the Enterprise Fortress Gateway, you can be confident that your network’s edge is suited for any failure mode.
See our complete guide to configuring Shadow Mode.
Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation (MC-LAG)
The Enterprise Campus Aggregation is a high-capacity 100G switch that extends redundancy to the core of your network. It features Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation (MC-LAG), which allows combining two physical switches into a single logical unit. This enables link aggregation of ports across both switches to effectively load balance traffic, and more importantly provide nearly instant failover in the event of a link failure, port failure, or even an entire switch failure.
See our complete guide to configuring MC-LAG.
Switch Stacking
Our ECS-S switches support Switch Stacking, which combines multiple physical switches into a single logical switch. An uplink built as a cross-stack Link Aggregation Group (LAG) keeps working even if an entire switch in the stack fails, not just a port or cable, and the stack keeps forwarding and stays fully manageable throughout.
Stacking also simplifies the cabling needed to get that redundancy. Without stacking, each access switch needs its own two redundant uplink fibers, one to each switch in an MC-LAG pair. With stacking, the whole stack needs only two uplink fiber runs total, at the same level of redundancy. See our complete guide to Switch Stacking.
E7 Series Access Points
UniFi’s E7 Series Access Points (E7, E7 Campus & E7 Audience) are built for WiFi 7 performance in high-density environments. They feature a 10GbE primary uplink and a 1GbE secondary port for redundant power and data when connected to separate switches. With Multi-Link Operation (MLO), they optimize traffic across all bands for better performance and lower latency. Powered via PoE++, they integrate seamlessly with the Enterprise Campus 24/48 switches for a fully redundant wireless network.
5G Backup Solutions.
UniFi’s U5G Max and Backup devices ensure uninterrupted connectivity by automatically switching to a cellular network when other internet connections go down. Designed for flexibility, U5G Max / Max Outdoor and U5G Backup can be physically connected anywhere in your network, so they can be placed where LTE signal strength is optimal. To optimize performance and control costs, administrators can selectively enable 5G failover for critical networks, such as point-of-sale systems, while disabling it for bandwidth-heavy ones like guest WiFi. Data limits and alerts can also be configured to prevent unexpected overages. Learn more here.