Brocade FastIron Ethernet Switch Layer 3 Routing Configuration Guide - Manual (Page 587)

FIGURE 35 Switch 1 is the Host1 default gateway but is a single point of failure
Switch 1 is the host default gateway out of the subnet. If this interface goes down, Host1 is cut off from
the rest of the network. Switch 1 is thus a single point of failure for Host1’s access to other networks.
If Switch 1 fails, you could configure Host1 to use Switch 2. Configuring one host with a different default
gateway might not require too much extra administration. However, consider a more realistic network
with dozens or even hundreds of hosts per subnet; reconfiguring the default gateways for all the hosts is
impractical. It is much simpler to configure a VRRP virtual router on Switch 1 and Switch 2 to provide a
redundant path for the hosts.
The examples show the same sample networks, but a VRRP virtual router is configured on Switch 1
and Switch 2 in the second example.
VRRP and VRRP-E
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