350-501 Automation and Assurance Practice Question
A service provider has implemented model-driven telemetry to monitor the health of its core network. The telemetry collector is a single server running a custom application that receives and processes gRPC streams from 200 routers. The collector is experiencing high CPU usage and is falling behind in processing data, causing some telemetry data to be dropped. The engineer decides to offload processing to multiple collectors. The routers support dial-out mode and can be configured with a list of collector IPs. The engineer wants to distribute the load evenly across collectors without manual configuration per router. Which should the engineer implement?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the misconception that DNS round-robin or multicast can solve load distribution in telemetry, but the trap here is that dial-out gRPC requires TCP unicast connections and DNS round-robin lacks real-time load awareness, making a load balancer the only viable option for even distribution without manual configuration.
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
✓
Use a load balancer in front of the collectors and configure all routers to send to the load balancer VIP.
A load balancer distributes incoming gRPC streams from all 200 routers across multiple collectors based on a configured algorithm (e.g., round-robin or least connections), achieving even load distribution without per-router configuration. The routers simply send telemetry to a single virtual IP (VIP), and the load balancer forwards each stream to an available collector, preventing any single collector from being overwhelmed. This matches the requirement to offload processing and avoid manual configuration per router.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use a load balancer in front of the collectors and configure all routers to send to the load balancer VIP.
Why this is correct
A load balancer provides dynamic distribution and requires no changes to router configuration beyond the VIP.
- ✗
Use a multicast address for telemetry subscription so all collectors receive all data.
Why it's wrong here
Multicast would send all data to all collectors, increasing CPU load on each, not reducing it.
- ✗
Configure each router with a round-robin DNS name that resolves to multiple collector IPs.
Why it's wrong here
Round-robin DNS does not account for collector load and can lead to uneven distribution; it also requires DNS changes on each router.
- ✗
Divide the routers into groups and assign each group to a different collector IP via the router configuration.
Why it's wrong here
This requires manual assignment and does not adapt to changes in collector load.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 350-501 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 350-501 exam.