Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Practice Exam

The valid HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol) virtual MAC address is designed to facilitate redundancy in IP networks. HSRP uses a specific format for its virtual MAC addresses, which makes them identifiable to the devices functioning in a standby mode. The HSRP virtual MAC address begins with a prefix of 0000.0C, followed by the HSRP group number. The last six hexadecimal digits (the remaining part of the address) represent a unique identifier for that HSRP group, ensuring that it does not conflict with other groups on the network. In this case, the correct choice begins with the prefix 0000.0C, indicating that it conforms to the standard HSRP MAC address format. As a result, this address can be used by routers participating in HSRP to manage failover between gateways. The other options do not follow the required HSRP virtual MAC address structure. Some of them have a different prefix completely or lack the correct formatting that identifies them as HSRP-related. Understanding the specific structure of HSRP MAC addresses is crucial for network engineers, especially when configuring redundancy and failover mechanisms in network designs.