System Design · Senior · Question 49 of 75
How does active-passive failover differ from active-active?
- ✓Correct answer: In active-passive a standby waits and takes over on failure; in active-active all nodes serve traffic
- 2Active-passive works only for databases, active-active only for the frontend
- 3They're the same; only the names differ across clouds
Explanation
Active-passive is simpler for consistency, but the standby sits idle and failover takes time. Active-active uses resources fully and survives a node failure unnoticed, but requires conflict resolution and load balancing.