Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Practice Exam 2026 – The Comprehensive All-in-One Guide to Exam Success!

In a GLBP (Gateway Load Balancing Protocol) network, the Active Virtual Gateway (AVG) is responsible for fulfilling ARP requests. The AVG acts as the primary gateway and manages the forwarding of traffic for the virtual IP address used by the GLBP group. When a device attempts to send traffic to the virtual IP address, it will perform an ARP request to resolve that IP address to a MAC address.

Upon receiving the ARP request, the AVG responds with the virtual MAC address, allowing the device to send packets to the appropriate router. The AVG can also provide different MAC addresses to different hosts in the network to enable load balancing across multiple Active Virtual Forwarders (AVFs). This approach effectively distributes traffic among the participating routers, as each AVF can respond to ARP requests based on its own configured load-balancing algorithm.

Understanding the role of the AVG is critical for managing how traffic flows and ensuring efficient use of available network resources in a GLBP-enabled environment.