What is a possible Conjur node role change?

In a CyberArk Conjur high-availability (HA) cluster, the architecture is designed for resilience using Leader and Standby nodes. The Leader is the single writable node, while Standby nodes are synchronous replicas. The primary function of a Standby is to be available for immediate promotion to the Leader role in the event of a failure of the active Leader. This promotion is the core mechanism of a failover, ensuring the continued availability of the Conjur service for write operations like policy updates. This process can be initiated automatically by a cluster manager or manually by an administrator.

B. A Follower is an asynchronous, read-only replica designed for scaling read-heavy workloads and cannot be promoted to a Leader, as it may not have the most current data.

C. This would be a role demotion or reconfiguration, not a promotion. A Standby has a higher-level HA function (synchronous replication) than a Follower (asynchronous replication).

D. During a failover, a Standby is promoted to Leader. The old, failed Leader, once recovered, can be configured to rejoin the cluster as a Standby, but this is a post-failover recovery step, not the failover event itself.

1. CyberArk Conjur Enterprise Documentation

"Conjur Cluster Architecture": This section explicitly describes the roles. It states

"The Leader and Standbys form a high availability (HA) cluster. If the Leader fails

a Standby is promoted to Leader. This can be done manually

or automatically using a cluster management tool... Followers are read-only asynchronous replicas of the Leader... Followers cannot be promoted to Leader."

2. CyberArk Conjur Enterprise Documentation

"Set up a High Availability Cluster": The procedure for handling a failover is detailed in the "Promote a Standby" section. It outlines the command evoke cluster promote which is used to perform this exact role change. This confirms that promoting a Standby to a Leader is a designed and documented operational capability.

3. CyberArk Conjur Enterprise Documentation

"Disaster Recovery": In the context of recovering a failed Leader

the documentation states: "When the original Leader is restored

it can be configured as a Standby in the cluster." This clarifies the lifecycle of a former Leader post-failure

distinguishing it from the initial failover action described in option A.