Cisco Updated 300-420 Exam Questions and Answers by mia-rose

OSPF with the hub in area 0 and branch routers in stub areas with ECMP is the best fit because the customer has multivendor branch routers with limited memory and CPU. EIGRP is not suitable in this case because the branch environment is multivendor and EIGRP is not the safest open-standard design choice for broad interoperability. IS-IS can be efficient, but it is less common for small DMVPN branch deployments and the option does not address the requirement for resource-constrained branch routing. eBGP route reflection is not technically correct, because route reflectors are an iBGP scaling mechanism. OSPF provides an open-standard dynamic routing solution, and placing branches in stub areas limits the amount of external routing information that low-resource branch routers must process. ECMP allows both equal 10-Mbps DMVPN paths to be used when equal-cost paths exist. This design reduces operational overhead compared with static routing while respecting the platform constraints at the spokes. Reference topics: OSPF branch design, stub areas, ECMP, DMVPN routing, multivendor interoperability, branch resource optimization.

The design should combine IP SLA with Enhanced Object Tracking on router R1. HSRP by itself tracks the health of the local interface and peer state, but it may not detect a remote WAN failure beyond the directly connected segment. IP SLA can actively probe a target through WAN 1, such as an upstream next hop or reachable service address. Enhanced Object Tracking then tracks the IP SLA result and adjusts the HSRP priority when the probe fails. If R1 loses WAN 1 reachability, its HSRP priority is decremented, allowing R2 to become the active default gateway. A floating static route can provide routing backup, but it does not directly trigger HSRP state change for gateway failover. Policy-based routing and IP source routing are not appropriate high-availability mechanisms for this requirement. The correct design pattern is therefore IP SLA plus object tracking integrated with HSRP. The architect should set preemption, decrement values, timers, and tracked destinations carefully to avoid false failovers during transient loss. Reference topics: HSRP, IP SLA, Enhanced Object Tracking, first-hop redundancy, WAN failure detection.

The SD-Access underlay must run a routing protocol to establish IP connectivity between infrastructure devices. Cisco SD-Access uses a routed underlay to provide basic reachability among fabric edge nodes, border nodes, control-plane nodes, and intermediate nodes. Cisco design documentation states that all network elements in the fabric underlay must have IP connectivity through routing. Catalyst Center LAN Automation commonly deploys IS-IS for this purpose, although the underlay can be built manually with another supported routing design. The user endpoints and client subnets are not part of the underlay; they belong to the overlay, where fabric services, segmentation, and policy are applied. CEF should not be disabled, because efficient IP forwarding is necessary for the routed underlay. Two or more switches are not required merely to avoid spanning-tree loops; the SD-Access underlay is normally Layer 3 routed and avoids large Layer 2 loop domains. Reference topics: Cisco SD-Access underlay, routed access, LAN Automation, IS-IS, fabric node reachability.

Affinity is the SD-WAN feature used to control and reduce control connections between WAN Edge devices and vSmart controllers. Cisco SD-WAN high-availability documentation describes controller affinity as a way to limit the number of controllers that an edge device establishes control connections with, while still preserving controller and data center redundancy. This reduces unnecessary control-plane load and limits the strain placed on vSmart controllers in large overlays. The feature is particularly useful when multiple vSmart controllers exist across multiple data centers and the designer wants predictable primary and backup controller relationships. The color attribute identifies transport characteristics, such as public Internet, MPLS, or other transport types. Control-connections is a general concept, not the feature that minimizes them. Control-direction is not the correct design construct for this purpose. A scalable SD-WAN design should use affinity where controller scale, regionalization, and control-plane efficiency must be explicitly managed. Reference topics: Cisco SD-WAN controller affinity, vSmart scale, control connections, TLOC control-plane optimization.