Which type of LIF supports automatic failover without host multipathing?

• A. NAS LIFs
• B. SAN LIFs
• C. NVMe LIFs
• D. Cluster LIFs

Answer: (A)

NAS LIFs are designed to be highly available at the protocol level. They use a floating IP that can move between nodes in the cluster, so when a node or path issue occurs, the LIF automatically rehomes to a healthy node and the client connection can be reestablished without any host-side multipathing. This makes failover transparent for file protocols (NFS/SMB) because the client simply reconnects to the same IP address. SAN LIFs, which serve block protocols (iSCSI/FC), typically rely on host multipathing to handle path failover, so automatic failover without MPIO isn’t as seamless. NVMe LIFs and cluster LIFs have different roles and behavior, but for automatic, host-agnostic failover, NAS LIFs are the best fit.