Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Practice Exam

What is the default number of paths EIGRP can load balance across?

1. 1

2. 2

3. 4

4. 8

The correct answer is: 4

The default number of paths that EIGRP can use for load balancing is four. EIGRP, or Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol, employs a load balancing technique that allows it to distribute traffic across multiple paths to a destination. This is particularly useful for improving redundancy and increasing bandwidth utilization. When EIGRP discovers multiple routes to a destination, it will by default utilize up to four equal-cost paths. This means that if there are four or more routes with the same cost metric, EIGRP will seamlessly distribute the outgoing traffic among them. This load balancing helps to optimize network performance and enhance the efficiency of data transport. While EIGRP can be configured to support more than four paths, doing so requires explicit configuration to change the default behavior. Therefore, understanding that the default load balancing capability is four paths is important for configuring network devices to ensure optimal routing and performance in scenarios where multiple paths exist.