During a high-availability planning session, you are asked to configure two identical application servers so that they both accept client connections at the same time, share a single virtual IP address, and continue providing the service automatically even if one node unexpectedly fails. Which clustering approach will meet these requirements?
Round-robin DNS entries pointing at standalone servers with no cluster awareness
Cold-standby redundancy that requires manual DNS or IP failover during maintenance
Active-active cluster that load-balances traffic across all running nodes
Active-passive cluster with a hot-standby node that takes over only during failure
An active-active cluster keeps every node online and actively servicing the same workload behind a shared virtual IP or load balancer. Because each node is already in production, a node failure only reduces capacity-the remaining node seamlessly continues handling requests. An active-passive design leaves standby nodes idle until failover, so it does not increase throughput under normal conditions. Round-robin DNS distributes traffic but offers no cluster-level health monitoring or automatic state coordination, while cold-standby arrangements rely on manual intervention and therefore cannot guarantee uninterrupted service.