Session Manager Release 6.3 and later elements are GR-aware.

In the normal operation mode, all Session Manager Release 6.3 and later elements communicate with the primary System Manager server for provisioned and configuration data.

You can configure both the primary and the secondary System Manager servers as unique trap destinations on each element. During a failover, the primary System Manager server becomes nonoperational, and you must manually activate the secondary System Manager server. Subsequently, all Geographic Redundancy-aware Session Manager elements automatically switch to the secondary System Manager server by using the Arbiter process of Session Manager.

In the primary nonoperational mode, each Session Manager element continues to interact with the primary System Manager server until the element receives an Activation notification from the secondary System Manager server. After the Session Manager element receives a secondary Activation notification, the element switches to the primary nonoperational mode.

In the primary nonoperational mode, the Session Manager element continuously polls the two System Manager servers to determine the current states.

Session Manager continues to communicate with the current managing System Manager server until there is a network disconnect or fragmentation. If there is a disconnect, for example, because of a network split, the Session Manager switches to an active System Manager that is reachable within the network.