An HSRP group is a redundancy group of routers that use a proprietary protocol from Cisco called Hot Standby Routing Protocol. The group provides router backup in the event of a router system failure or an interface failure.
In an HSRP group, several routers that are connected to the same segment of an Ethernet, FDDI, or token-ring network work together to present the appearance of a single virtual router on the LAN. Because the routers share the same IP and MAC addresses, the hosts on the LAN are able to continue forwarding packets to a consistent IP and MAC address in the event of a router failure. The process of transferring the routing responsibilities from one router to another is transparent to the user.
The Smarts IP Manager User Guide provides information about creating HSRP groups.
