Hardware-assisted takeover speeds up the takeover process by using a node's remote management device (SP or RLM) to detect failures and quickly initiate the takeover rather than waiting for Data ONTAP to recognize that the partner's heartbeat has stopped.
Without hardware-assisted takeover, if a failure occurs, the partner waits until it notices that the node is no longer giving a heartbeat, confirms the loss of heartbeat, and then initiates the takeover.
The hardware-assisted takeover feature uses the following process to take advantage of the remote management device and avoid that wait:
The hardware-assisted takeover option (cf.hw_assist.enable) is enabled by default.