What is the consequence of a Gateway process failure?

The consequence of a Gateway process failure is that the entire Tableau Server cluster becomes unavailable. The Gateway process is the component responsible for handling and routing client requests to the appropriate services within the Tableau Server architecture. When this process fails, it cannot direct incoming requests correctly, which leads to an inability for users to access the Tableau Server, thus making it seem as though the entire cluster is down.

This situation happens because the Gateway acts as the entry point for all user interactions with the server. If it fails, it can no longer facilitate communication between users and other components of the server, such as the backgrounders, data engines, or repositories. Consequently, users experience a complete loss of access to services that depend on the Gateway, which effectively results in all users seeing the Tableau Server as unavailable.

The other choices do not accurately capture the implications of a Gateway process failure. Specific requests being queued could occur under different circumstances, external connections alone being affected does not address the overarching impact and automatic traffic redirection to backup servers is not a feature associated with Gateway failures, as such failover mechanisms typically require the cluster to remain operational.