Comparing HSRP Versus VRRP

When configuring high availability gateways between multiple routers you only have a couple of options to choose from. If you have all Cisco routers chances are you will be configuring and using HSRP to provide redundancy between your routers. If you have Juniper, Foundry (Brocade), or any another router you'll most likely use VRRP. Oh sure, there's CARP or GLBP that you might use depending on the situation. But almost always you'll choose between HSRP and VRRP. So which one is best? Or does it really matter? HSRP stands for Hot Standby Routing Protocol. VRRP stands for Virtual Route Redundancy Protocol. The differences between HSRP versus VRRP are very slight especially when looking at the basic configuration side by side. But under the covers there are some significant differences. The end result, however is still the same. If a router fails you need a standby router to become the active gateway and forward packets to the next hop. Here's a break down that compares the major differences between the two protocols.

Configuration differences between HSRP and VRRP

The differences between both VRRP and HSRP, especially on a Cisco router are very slight. If your familiar with configuring HSROP you can easily understand VRRP commands. Configuring VRRP on Juniper as well as other network equipment can vary significantly depending on the devices. Many load balancers also support VRRP and their configuration is specific to each of these devices.

HSRP Configuration Example R1(config)# interface GigE 0/1 R1(config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0 R1(config-if)# standby 1 ip 192.168.1.1 R1(config-if)# standby 1 priority 200 R1(config-if)# standby 1 preempt R2(config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.3 255.255.255.0 R2(config-if)# standby 1 ip 192.168.1.1 R2(config-if)# standby 1 preempt VRRP Configuration Example R1(config)# interface GigE 0/1 R1(config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0 R1(config-if)# vrrp 1 ip 192.168.1.1 R1(config-if)# vrrp 1 priority 110 R2(config)# interface GigE 0/1 R2(config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.3 255.255.255.0 R2(config-if)# vrrp 1 ip 192.168.1.1 Notice the lack of a preempt command. This isn't necessary for VRRP. It's enabled by default. As you can see there sin't a big difference between the two protocols. The primary difference between HSRP versus VRRP would be that HSRP is proprietary to Cisco and can only be used on Cisco devices. VRRP is a standards based protocol and is vendor independant allow some flexibility when choosing network devices.