An exclusion range is a set of IP addresses within a DHCP scope that the server is prohibited from leasing to DHCP clients. The scenario involves devices with pre-configured static IP addresses that fall within the DHCP scope's address pool. To prevent the DHCP server from assigning these same addresses to other clients and causing an IP address conflict, these addresses must be excluded from distribution. Since the four IP addresses are in a contiguous block (10.10.1.10-10.10.1.13), creating a single exclusion range is the most direct solution and requires the least administrative effort.

B. Create reservations.

Reservations are used to assign a specific IP address to a specific DHCP client based on its MAC address. The devices in the scenario are configured with static IPs, not as DHCP clients.

C. Configure the Scope options.

Scope options are used to deliver configuration parameters to DHCP clients, such as DNS servers or a default gateway, not to control which IP addresses are leased from the pool.

D. Create a policy.

DHCP policies provide granular control over address assignments based on client attributes. This is an overly complex solution for simply preventing a block of addresses from being leased.

1. Microsoft Learn. "Manage IP address scopes." Windows Server Documentation. In the section "Add an exclusion range

" it states

"You can exclude IP addresses from a scope if you want to prevent them from being leased to DHCP clients. An exclusion is a contiguous range of IP addresses within a scope that are not available for lease." This directly supports using an exclusion range for this purpose.

2. Microsoft Learn. "DHCP Address Pools." Windows Server Documentation. This document explains

"An exclusion range ensures that the server doesn't offer any address in that range to a DHCP client. You should create an exclusion for each address that you've manually assigned to another device on your network."

3. Microsoft Learn. "DHCP Reservations." Windows Server Documentation. This document clarifies the purpose of reservations: "You can use DHCP reservations to assign a specific IP address to a specific DHCP client... Reservations ensure that a specific hardware device on your subnet can always have the same IP address." This confirms reservations are for DHCP clients

which is not the case here.

4. Microsoft Learn. "DHCP Policies." Windows Server Documentation. This source describes policies as a mechanism to "group and configure clients

or to control the parameters that are assigned to them." This is for targeted configuration

not for blocking a static range of IPs.