What is the primary function of the Quorum Disk in a HA Cluster Vault?

The Quorum Disk plays a crucial role in maintaining the integrity and availability of a High Availability (HA) Cluster when it comes to CyberArk Vaults. Its primary function is to act as a tie-breaking vote among the cluster nodes during a situation where there is a network partition or failure that prevents nodes from establishing a consensus.

In a HA environment, it is essential for the cluster to determine which node or nodes remain operational and can proceed with processing requests. If an even number of nodes are up and one or more experiences a failure, the remaining nodes may find themselves in a state where they cannot decide the active status of the cluster. The Quorum Disk provides a reliable point of reference that helps to resolve such scenarios by ensuring that an odd number of total votes is always reached. This prevents what is known as a "split-brain" situation, where two segments of the cluster might attempt to operate independently, potentially leading to data corruption or inconsistency.

Understanding this function is vital for configuring and managing a secure and reliable CyberArk environment, especially when planning for redundancy and failover mechanisms. Other options, while they may refer to different features or components, do not reflect the specific and critical role that the Quorum Disk fulfills in facilitating cluster stability