# Benefits of clustering

Clustering firewall nodes can significantly reduce the risk of problems with availability and maintenance.

A Single Firewall can be a single point of failure. This can affect the availability of business critical applications and complicate the maintenance of the firewall equipment. Clustering firewall nodes can significantly reduce the risk of these problems.

The Forcepoint NGFW solution uses built-in clustering technology. No additional software or hardware is needed to cluster several nodes. If a node itself or the surrounding network equipment malfunctions, the other nodes in the cluster take over the traffic processing, minimizing any disruptions to the traffic flow. Similarly, maintenance is easier with a cluster, because individual nodes can be taken offline and even exchanged for new hardware without causing service outages.

Firewall Clusters also balance the load of traffic processing between the firewall nodes. You can flexibly add nodes to scale up the Firewall Cluster, improving the throughput and performance.