Which technology prevents loss of connection between a virtual server and network storage?

Which of the following technologies would MOST likely be used to prevent the loss of connection between a virtual server and network storage devices?

Multipathing Source Reference Answer
VRRP
Port aggregation
NIC teaming

Community Votes

80%

20%

80% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.

Community Insight

This question tests your ability to distinguish storage-specific redundancy (multipathing) from generic network redundancy mechanisms; the trap is choosing VRRP or NIC teaming because they also provide 'failover' but in different contexts.

Multipathing is the correct answer because it maintains a constant connection between a virtual server and storage by using multiple physical paths to the storage array. The CompTIA community strongly favors option A, and VMware documentation confirms multipathing as the standard solution for storage path redundancy.

The most common wrong answer is VRRP (option B) because it is a redundancy protocol, but VRRP provides automatic failover for the default gateway IP on routers, not redundant paths to storage devices; multipathing is the storage-specific solution.

Community Discussion (4 comments)

subaie503 👍 6 Selected: A

A. Multipathing Multipathing is the technology most likely used to prevent the loss of connection between a virtual server and network storage devices. It provides multiple physical pathways between the server and the storage infrastructure, ensuring that if one path fails, another can take over, maintaining the connection and preventing data access disruptions. This is especially important in environments relying heavily on virtual servers and network storage, where continuous access to data is critical.

21bc1a0 👍 2 Selected: A

Keywords: loss of connection

Korrynne 👍 4 Selected: A

From VMWare https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc/GUID-DD2FFAA7-796E-414C-84CE-1FCC14474D5B.html "To maintain a constant connection between a host and its storage, ESXi supports multipathing. With multipathing, you can use more than one physical path that transfers data between the host and an external storage device. If a failure of any element in the SAN network, such as an adapter, switch, or cable, occurs, ESXi can switch to another viable physical path. This process of path switching to avoid failed components is known as path failover. In addition to path failover, multipathing provides load balancing. Load balancing is the process of distributing I/O loads across multiple physical paths. Load balancing reduces or removes potential bottlenecks."

PatrickH 👍 3 Selected: B

The Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) is a computer networking protocol that provides for automatic assignment of available Internet Protocol (IP) routers to participating hosts. This increases the availability and reliability of routing paths via automatic default gateway selections on an IP subnetwork. The protocol achieves this by the creation of virtual routers, which are an abstract representation of multiple routers, i.e. primary/active and secondary/Standby routers, acting as a group. The virtual router is assigned to act as a default gateway of participating hosts, instead of a physical router. If the physical router that is routing packets on behalf of the virtual router fails, another physical router is selected to automatically replace it. The physical router that is forwarding packets at any given time is called the primary/active router Its VRRP

Comments & Corrections

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Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

Multipathing uses multiple physical paths between a host and an external storage device to transfer data. If one path fails due to a SAN switch, HBA, cable, or storage port problem, another path can take over, preventing loss of connection. This directly matches the scenario of a virtual server connecting to network storage.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

VRRP is designed for IP router redundancy and default gateway failover, not storage path failover, so it does not prevent loss of connection to storage arrays. Port aggregation (e.g., LACP) combines multiple physical links into a single logical link to increase bandwidth or provide link redundancy at the switch level, but it is not multipathing and does not provide SCSI-level path failover to storage. NIC teaming groups multiple network adapters for host network redundancy, but it is not specifically designed for storage multipathing and generally operates at the IP layer rather than the storage protocol layer.

Community Comment Notes

The community vote and comments overwhelmingly favor A. Comment 1 explains that multipathing provides multiple physical pathways to storage, ensuring data access continues if one path fails. Comment 2 provides an official VMware link that explicitly supports multipathing for maintaining a constant connection between a host and storage. Comment 3 incorrectly suggests VRRP, but the wording shows VRRP handles router availability, not storage connectivity.

Official Reference

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc/GUID-DD2FFAA7-796E-414C-84CE-1FCC14474D5B.html

Exam Strategy

Look for keywords like 'virtual server' and 'network storage' — those point to storage path redundancy, so multipathing should be your first instinct. Remember that protocols like VRRP, LACP, and NIC teaming are about network-level redundancy and bandwidth, while multipathing is specifically for storage device connections.

Related Analysis

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