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PCNSA Practice Question: Designing a high availability deployment and…
A company is designing a high availability deployment and wants to minimize downtime. Which two configurations are required for session failover? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse high availability modes (active/active vs. active/passive) with the specific requirement for session failover, or they assume that identical IP addresses on the HA link are needed for redundancy, when in fact they must be unique to avoid layer-2 conflicts.
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
✓
Ensure both firewalls have identical security policies.
Session failover requires that the passive firewall can take over active sessions without interruption. Identical security policies (Option B) ensure that the same rules apply to traffic after failover, preventing asymmetric policy drops. Session synchronization (Option C) copies session state from the active to the passive firewall, so the passive unit has the exact session table needed to continue forwarding traffic seamlessly.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Set the HA mode to active/active.
Why it's wrong here
Session failover works in both active/passive and active/active, but not required for session failover.
- ✓
Ensure both firewalls have identical security policies.
Why this is correct
Matching policies are required so that after failover, traffic is handled consistently.
- ✓
Enable session synchronization on both firewalls.
Why this is correct
Session sync is necessary for active sessions to be transferred on failover.
- ✗
Configure the same HA firewall link IP address on both firewalls.
Why it's wrong here
HA link IPs must be unique to avoid conflicts.
- ✗
Enable gratuitous ARP on the passive firewall.
Why it's wrong here
GARP is used for MAC learning, not for session failover.
Quick reference
Asymmetric Encryption Algorithm Comparison
| Algorithm | Key Exchange | Signatures | Equivalent Security Key | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSA-3072 | Yes | Yes | 128-bit | Widely deployed; slow for bulk data |
| ECDSA P-256 | No | Yes | 128-bit | Fast signatures; standard TLS certs |
| ECDH / ECDHE | Yes | No | 128-bit | Perfect forward secrecy in TLS 1.3 |
| DH / DHE | Yes | No | 128-bit (3072-bit key) | Replaced by ECDHE in modern TLS |
| Ed25519 | No | Yes | ~128-bit | SSH keys, modern PKI |
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCNSA practice question is part of Courseiva's free Palo Alto Networks 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 PCNSA exam.