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A cluster's nodes monitor each other, and when one goes offline its connections fail over to another.
Active/active: every node is active and shares the load, so it does not matter which one a client reaches. It is often the ideal.
Active/passive: everything goes to the active node. The passive node keeps updating and takes over if the active one goes down. Database servers often run this way, because two servers changing data at the same time contend with each other.
Primary and secondary (and the older master and slave) mean much the same, and can also say which node is usually live. The secondary can be smaller, beefed up only if it has to carry the load. Failing over to a patched passive copy lets you maintain a database with no downtime.
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