HSRP Alternative: Cisco Supported First Hop Redundancy Protocol

A

The correct answer is A. VRRP.

First Hop Redundancy Protocols (FHRPs) are used to provide redundancy at the first hop of a network, typically the default gateway. FHRPs help to ensure that if the active gateway fails, there is another gateway that can take over to provide continued connectivity.

Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) is a Cisco proprietary FHRP that allows multiple routers to participate in a virtual router group, where one router is designated as the active router and the other(s) as standby router(s). The active router is responsible for forwarding packets sent to the virtual IP address of the group, and the standby routers are ready to take over if the active router fails.

However, there are other standards-based FHRPs that can be used as alternatives to HSRP, including Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) and Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP).

VRRP is a standards-based FHRP that provides redundancy for IP networks. VRRP works by allowing multiple routers to participate in a virtual router group, where one router is designated as the master and the other(s) as backup. The master router is responsible for forwarding packets sent to the virtual IP address of the group, and the backup routers are ready to take over if the master router fails.

GLBP is another FHRP that is also a Cisco proprietary protocol. GLBP allows multiple routers to participate in a virtual router group, where they share the load of forwarding packets sent to the virtual IP address of the group. GLBP uses a round-robin algorithm to distribute the traffic among the routers in the group, and can also provide redundancy by designating one router as the active virtual gateway.

To summarize, the correct answer to the question is A. VRRP, which is a standards-based FHRP that can be used as an alternative to HSRP. GLBP is also a Cisco proprietary FHRP that can be used for load balancing and redundancy, but it is not a standards-based protocol. TFTP and DHCP are not FHRPs and are not related to providing redundancy at the first hop of a network.