With an active-active environment, you can run multiple instances of Perceptive Content balanced across redundant nodes, also called clusters. One server environment is set up (the primary) on one node and at least one other server environment is created (secondary) on a different node.
If the primary environment begins to fail, the system immediately switches over to the secondary environment. This offers two benefits. The first is that an active-active environment does not require the large-scale investment in extra hardware to backup data. The second benefit is that an active-active environment protects against system-wide crashes and avoids single points of failure because the server can switch to the secondary server environment if the primary server environment fails without having to shut down and restart the system.
You also can install the two parts of Perceptive Content Server, per-Server and shared Server, in independent locations. The per-Server is usually installed locally with respect to the installer. The shared Server piece, since it is only installed once per active-active environment, is usually installed on a network drive.