Cisco Enterprise Network Core Technologies (ENCOR) Practice Exam

In an HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol) configuration, traffic redundancy is achieved through the use of master and backup routers. HSRP is designed to provide high availability for IP networks by allowing multiple routers to work together to present the appearance of a single virtual router to the hosts on the local network.

In this configuration, one router is elected as the active router, which is responsible for forwarding traffic sent to the virtual IP address. The other routers in the group serve as standby routers, ready to immediately take over the traffic forwarding duties if the active router fails. This setup ensures that there is always an available router to handle traffic, thereby enhancing fault tolerance and preventing network downtime. This seamless transition between routers maintains service continuity, which is essential in enterprise networks.

While other elements like load balancers and various connection types may play roles in different contexts of network design, they do not specifically guarantee traffic redundancy in the manner that the collaboration between master and backup routers does in HSRP configurations.