Importance of Running Two VAs

Running two or more Umbrella virtual appliances (VAs) offers high redundancy in the case of a system upgrade or a new version of the Umbrella VA. Umbrella recommends two VAs in order to perform updates without interruption.

To set up a second virtual appliance, repeat the procedure for setting up the first one. For more information, see Deploy Virtual Appliances.

Benefits of Two VAs

• No downtime associated with upgrades
  When an upgrade takes place, individual virtual appliances will restart, causing up to 20 minutes of downtime. During this time, any DNS queries routed to the virtual appliance will time out and you will lose internet connectivity. Running two VAs ensures that there is no interruption in Internet service.
• Ability to schedule updates
  Running two VAs allows for the scheduling of updates in the Umbrella dashboard. You can schedule updates for off-hours or during scheduled maintenance windows.
• High availability
  If issues arise in one of your VAs, or if you would like to rebuild or move a VA to another host, you can take action without interruptions.

Deployment Guidelines < Importance of Running Two VAs > Deploy Virtual Appliances