Chapter 2: Cold Standby Service

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Before discussing the detailed procedures for replacing hardware, it is important to be aware of the option of the Clavister Cold Standby (CSB) Service.

If the CSB service is not applicable to the hardware replacement being undertaken then this chapter can be skipped and the relevant selection from the succeeding chapters should be referenced instead.

CSB Service Overview

To ensure the rapid replacement of faulty hardware, the Clavister customer can take advantage of the Cold Standby Service. This allows the purchase of an identical piece of Clavister hardware at a discounted price which is then kept on-site to quickly replace a faulty unit and also provides a simple procedure to transfer the cOS Core license of the faulty unit to the replacement.

Before a CSB replacement unit is powered-up for the first time, the user must log into the Clavister website and inform the Clavister system that the CSB unit will be used by entering the CSB Service Tag. This makes the license on the CSB unit valid so that it can run as a replacement when it is started and with the same license constraints as before.

The faulty unit is then sent back to Clavister and a new CSB unit is sent back in its place. The original faulty unit is not returned.

	Note: A support agreement is required for the CSB service
The CSB service is only available to customers that have a current Clavister support agreement. Not all support agreements provide the CSB option and the Clavister website should be consulted for details about the agreements available. License transfer from the faulty unit to the CSB unit is not possible without the appropriate support agreement being in place.

Note: A support agreement is required for the CSB service

The CSB service is only available to customers that have a current Clavister support agreement. Not all support agreements provide the CSB option and the Clavister website should be consulted for details about the agreements available.

License transfer from the faulty unit to the CSB unit is not possible without the appropriate support agreement being in place.

Cold Standby Replacement Steps

In summary, the replacement steps with a CSB unit are the following:

Assuming that a CSB unit is available on-site and the original unit has failed, log into the relevant MyClavister account at:

http://www.clavister.com

Note that if the old unit being replaced is still functioning enough to communicate with the Clavister license server then it may still perform its periodic license check and mistakenly download the license for the unit that will replace it. That new license will not be valid so the old unit will enter lockdown and any remaining traffic filtering capability will be impaired.

For this reason, it is usually best to also disconnect the old hardware at this point.
Go to the Help Desk section of MyClavister and choose the Cold Standby Swap option to bring up the page for entering details about the swap.
Select the correct Product and License values for the faulty unit.
Enter the Cold Standby Service tag. This can be found on the replacement CSB unit. A summary of the proposed swap will be displayed.
Press the Perform Cold Standby Swap button to confirm the swap.
At this point, the replacement CSB unit can now be physically connected and switched on.
Restore a previous system backup to the CSB unit and install the newly generated license which is available from the MyClavister account on the Clavister website. This is described further in Chapter 3, Standalone & Identical.

For certain hardware models the process can be simplified using InControl, providing that the old hardware was under InControl management. This is also discussed in Chapter 3, Standalone & Identical.
Send back the faulty unit following standard RMA guidelines. These can be found in the Warranty section of the relevant Getting Started Guide for the hardware model.
As soon as the faulty unit is received, Clavister will send back a new CSB unit which can then be stored as a new standby.

Further Notes on the CSB Service and CSB Usage

Note the following about the CSB service and the usage of CSB hardware units:

The CSB service is only available if the customer has a current support agreement.
CSB hardware is usually an exact match for the hardware unit it is intended to replace. If a new CSB unit has to be supplied and the hardware type has become end-of-life, Clavister will provide the closest possible match from its current hardware products.
A CSB unit cannot be used as the slave node in an HA cluster.
One CSB unit could be kept as a replacement for any one of a number of identical hardware units that the customer has. In other words, it need not be a replacement for just one specific piece of hardware. The only requirement is that the model type of the CSB unit should be the same (or very similar for discontinued models) as the unit it is replacing.
A CSB unit is not intended to used as a normal functioning firewall until it is needed as a replacement for a faulty unit.

However, an on-site CSB unit could be used as a normal, non-replacement unit (for example, if there was an urgent need for an extra firewall) provided that an upgrade to a non-CSB unit is purchased first. A Clavister sales office should be contacted to request this change of purpose.

The CSB process is also discussed in a Clavister Knowledge Base article at the following link:

https://kb.clavister.com/332435773

Note that this Knowledge Base article also provides a link to an explanatory video for the cold standby swapping process.