Cisco ENCOR Practice Exam 2025 – All-in-One Comprehensive Guide to Mastering Enterprise Network Core Technologies!

Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) utilizes the Forwarding Table and Adjacency Table for efficient packet forwarding.

The Forwarding Table contains the information required to make forwarding decisions, essentially mapping destination IP prefixes to the next-hop interface. This table is critical in speeding up the packet forwarding process since it allows routers to quickly determine the next hop without having to go through the entire routing table, which is typically larger and more complex.

The Adjacency Table complements the Forwarding Table by storing information about the next-hop MAC addresses, enabling the router to resolve the Layer 2 addressing needed to forward packets onto the correct physical network segment. This minimizes the need for looking up MAC address information in real-time, as all necessary data about adjacent devices is pre-computed and readily stored.

In contrast, the other options do not accurately describe the tables utilized in CEF. The Routing Table contains more comprehensive routing information, but it is not directly used for the fast forwarding decisions made by CEF. The MAC Table pertains to Layer 2 operations and is not a central function of CEF, which operates primarily at Layer 3. The ARP Table is used for address resolution but is not integrated into the CEF architecture in the way the Adjacency