Performance Evaluation of First Hop Redundancy Protocols in IPv4 and IPv6 Networks

To enhance IP network availability, First Hop Redundancy Protocol (FHRP) is a necessary tool that used to achieve this goal. FHRPs are group of protocols that used to manage and maintain network first hop router (i.e. default router) failure. This work compares and evaluates different FHRPs which are Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), and Gateway Load Balancing (GLBP), in both IPv4 and IPv6 networks. The comparison among the three mentioned protocol was accomplished based on convergence time, packet loss and CPU utilization, after implementation, testing and optimization. GNS3 emulation tool was used. The comparison results highlights which protocol performed the best in each scenario and which protocol can be considered as the best among the three FHRPs.