To enable equal-cost load balancing across eight equal-cost OSPF routes to the 192.168.102.0/24 network, which command should you issue?

To enable equal-cost load balancing across eight equal-cost OSPF routes to the 192.168.102.0/24 network, which command should you issue?

• A. Configure EIGRP throughout the network
• B. Configure the variance to a value of 8
• C. Issue the "ip ospf cost 1" command on all interfaces
• D. It issues the "maximum-paths 8" command

Answer: (D)

Equal-cost multipath routing in OSPF lets a router forward traffic over several next-hops when multiple routes to a destination have the same cost. To allow using more than the default number of such paths, you configure the maximum-paths value under router ospf. Setting maximum-paths to eight lets the router install up to eight equal-cost routes to the same destination, such as 192.168.102.0/24, and spread traffic among them. The costs themselves stay the same; you simply increase how many equivalent routes can be used for load balancing. Using a different routing protocol would not affect OSPF behavior, so bringing EIGRP into the mix doesn't enable this equal-cost sharing for OSPF routes. The variance concept belongs to unequal-cost multipath handling in EIGRP, not OSPF. Merely setting the per-interface OSPF cost to 1 would not guarantee eight distinct equal-cost paths and could lead to unintended consequences; the explicit control is the maximum-paths command. In short, maximum-paths 8 is the direct instruction to allow eight equal-cost paths to be installed for load balancing across the eight OSPF routes.

Equal-cost multipath routing in OSPF lets a router forward traffic over several next-hops when multiple routes to a destination have the same cost. To allow using more than the default number of such paths, you configure the maximum-paths value under router ospf. Setting maximum-paths to eight lets the router install up to eight equal-cost routes to the same destination, such as 192.168.102.0/24, and spread traffic among them. The costs themselves stay the same; you simply increase how many equivalent routes can be used for load balancing.

Using a different routing protocol would not affect OSPF behavior, so bringing EIGRP into the mix doesn't enable this equal-cost sharing for OSPF routes. The variance concept belongs to unequal-cost multipath handling in EIGRP, not OSPF. Merely setting the per-interface OSPF cost to 1 would not guarantee eight distinct equal-cost paths and could lead to unintended consequences; the explicit control is the maximum-paths command.

In short, maximum-paths 8 is the direct instruction to allow eight equal-cost paths to be installed for load balancing across the eight OSPF routes.