Today I am going to talk about floating static routes. Floating static routes are backup routes that are strategically configured on a router that serves as a redundancy mechanism in case a primary dynamic route fails. These static routes are invisible to the eye, meaning when they are configured if you look at the routing table you will not see any static route as if it had not been configured. But even though it is invisible to the human eye, that route is basically in limbo or “floating” until the primary route to the destination has failed. A floating static route is manually configured with an AD higher than the primary dynamic route but lower than other potential backup mechanisms like other dynamic protocol routes that you want it to be preferred over. So if a company was running both EIGRP, with the primary route to a destination using EIGRP. In order for a route to be a floating static route, it would have to be configured to the same destination with an AD above 90, so when that main route for EIGRP happens to fail for whatever reason, the floating static route will be ready to take the primary spot to be the best route to that destination. This provides redundancy and high availability while reducing manual effort because if the EIGRP route comes back online, it will resume being the primary route again. The floating static route only appears on the routing table when it is active and the primary route, when the main dynamic routing route comes back online it will go back to not being installed in the routing table to the human eye again.
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