350-601 Network Practice Question
In a spine-leaf architecture, what is the primary advantage of having multiple spine switches?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the misconception that multiple spines primarily reduce latency, but the real advantage is redundancy and load balancing through ECMP, not a reduction in per-hop forwarding delay.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Redundancy and load balancing
In a spine-leaf architecture, multiple spine switches provide redundancy by ensuring that if one spine fails, traffic can still flow through other spines. They also enable load balancing because leaf switches can use equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routing to distribute traffic across all available spine uplinks, maximizing bandwidth utilization and preventing congestion on any single path.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Redundancy and load balancing
Why this is correct
Spines provide multiple paths for redundancy and ECMP.
- ✗
Lower latency
Why it's wrong here
Latency is low regardless of spine count.
- ✗
Simplified management
Why it's wrong here
Management is not simplified by adding spines.
- ✗
Increased oversubscription
Why it's wrong here
More spines reduce oversubscription, not increase.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 350-601 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 350-601 exam.