300-710 SNCF Deployment Practice Question
An administrator is troubleshooting a Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense high availability deployment where MAC address persistence is causing intermittent packet drops after a failover event. What is the role of MAC address persistence in an HA setup?
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
✓
It ensures that the active unit retains the virtual MAC addresses of the interfaces, preventing the need for downstream switches to relearn MAC-to-port mappings.
MAC persistence ensures that the active firewall unit takes over the virtual MAC addresses of the HA pair, ensuring downstream switches immediately update their MAC forwarding tables without waiting for aging timers.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
It ensures that the active unit retains the virtual MAC addresses of the interfaces, preventing the need for downstream switches to relearn MAC-to-port mappings.
Why this is correct
MAC persistence keeps virtual MAC addresses associated with the active unit, allowing seamless Layer 2 forwarding post-failover.
- ✗
It encrypts the MAC header of all packets crossing the stateful failover control link.
Why it's wrong here
MAC persistence has nothing to do with encrypting control link packets.
- ✗
It forces downstream Layer 2 switches to continuously flood broadcast traffic to both firewall nodes simultaneously.
Why it's wrong here
Flooding is inefficient and not the purpose of MAC persistence.
- ✗
It locks the management IP address to a static MAC address to prevent ARP spoofing attacks.
Why it's wrong here
This describes static ARP or port security, not HA MAC persistence.
Quick reference
Access Control Model Comparison
| Model | Acronym | Who Controls Access? | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discretionary Access Control | DAC | Resource owner | Small teams, file shares |
| Mandatory Access Control | MAC | System / security labels | Classified govt / military |
| Role-Based Access Control | RBAC | Administrator (via roles) | Enterprise environments |
| Attribute-Based Access Control | ABAC | Policy engine (user + resource attributes) | Fine-grained, dynamic policies |
| Rule-Based Access Control | RuBAC | System rules / ACLs | Firewall rules, network ACLs |
About these practice questions
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed August 2026 · checked against the official Cisco exam blueprint
This 300-710 SNCF 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 300-710 SNCF exam.