1--- 2layout: "docs" 3page_title: "Performance Standby Nodes - Vault Enterprise" 4sidebar_title: "Performance Standbys" 5sidebar_current: "docs-vault-enterprise-perf-standbys" 6description: |- 7 Performance Standby Nodes - Vault Enterprise 8--- 9 10# Performance Standby Nodes 11 12Vault supports a multi-server mode for high availability. This mode protects 13against outages by running multiple Vault servers. High availability mode 14is automatically enabled when using a data store that supports it. You can 15learn more about HA mode on the [Concepts](/docs/concepts/ha.html) page. 16 17Vault Enterprise offers additional features that allow HA nodes to service 18read-only requests on the local standby node. Read-only requests are requests 19that do not modify Vault's storage. 20 21## Server-to-Server Communication 22 23Performance Standbys require the request forwarding method described in the [HA 24Server-to-Server](/docs/concepts/ha.html#server-to-server-communication) docs. 25 26A performance standby will connect to the active node over the existing request 27forwarding connection. If selected by the active node to be promoted to a 28performance standby it will be handed a newly-generated private key and certificate 29for use in creating a new mutually-authenticated TLS connection to the cluster 30port. This connection will be used to send updates from the active node to the 31standby. 32 33## Request Forwarding 34 35A Performance Standby will attempt to process requests that come in. If a 36storage write is detected the standby will forward the request over the cluster 37port connection to the active node. If the request is read-only the Performance 38Standby will handle the requests locally. 39 40Sending requests to Performance Standbys that result in forwarded writes will be 41slightly slower than going directly to the active node. A client that has 42advanced knowledge of the behavior of the call can choose to point the request 43to the appropriate node. 44 45### Direct Access 46 47A Performance Standby will tag itself as such in consul if service registration 48is enabled. To access the set of Performance Standbys the `performance-standby` 49tag can be used. For example to send requests to only the performance standbys 50`https://performance-standby.vault.dc1.consul` could be used (host name may vary 51based on consul configuration). 52 53### Behind Load Balancers 54 55Additionally, if you wish to point your load balancers at performance standby 56nodes, the `sys/health` endpoint can be used to determine if a node is a 57performance standby. See the [sys/health API](/api/system/health.html) docs for 58more info. 59 60## Disabling Performance Standbys 61 62To disable performance standbys the `disable_performance_standby` flag should be 63set to true in the Vault config file. This will both tell a standby not to 64attempt to enable performance mode and an active node to not allow any 65performance standby connections. 66 67This setting should be synced across all nodes in the cluster. 68 69## Monitoring Performance Standbys 70 71To verify your node is a performance standby the `vault status` command can be 72used: 73 74``` 75$ vault status 76Key Value 77--- ----- 78Seal Type shamir 79Sealed false 80Total Shares 1 81Threshold 1 82Version 0.11.0+prem 83Cluster Name vault-cluster-d040e74c 84Cluster ID 9f82e03b-71fb-97a6-9c5a-46fa6715d6e4 85HA Enabled true 86HA Cluster https://127.0.0.1:8201 87HA Mode standby 88Active Node Address http://127.0.0.1:8200 89Performance Standby Node true 90Performance Standby Last Remote WAL 380329 91``` 92