Q: 2

When deploying Palo Alto Networks NGFWs in a cloud service provider (CSP) environment, which method ensures high availability (HA) across multiple availability zones?

Options

Discussion

Taylor Q. Oct 8, 2026 11:59 pm

C . D is tempting but that's just an on-prem mindset, HA pairs don't span AZs on CSPs. Anyone see it different?

Luke L. Oct 19, 2026 6:46 pm

C. not D here. Only load balancer plus health probes work for cross-AZ HA.

SteadyCandidate5782 Oct 16, 2026 1:01 pm

C . Load balancer with health probes is the usual approach for multi-AZ HA in CSP environments.

Drew M. Oct 25, 2026 8:04 am

C tbh. Native cloud load balancer and health probes is the only way to span AZs.

FocusedDev7537 Oct 20, 2026 2:35 pm

Hard to say, C . Saw a similar question in exam reports and they went with load balancer plus health probes for cross-AZ HA.

Sofia U. Oct 18, 2026 1:03 pm

C imo. Using a load balancer with health probes is the standard way for HA across multiple AZs in cloud, since native HA (like D) can't span zones in CSPs. Correct me if I'm missing something.

Jordan L. Oct 13, 2026 4:10 pm

Its C. You need a load balancer with health checks to make HA work across AZs in public cloud. D (active/active HA) is only for local redundancy, not for spanning zones-common trap if you're coming from on-prem setups. I think C is what Palo docs and exam guides point to, but happy to hear if someone got different info.

Nathan H. Oct 21, 2026 5:39 pm

Official study guide and real exam practice both describe C as the way to do cross-AZ HA with NGFWs in cloud.

Anita F. Oct 24, 2026 7:09 am

Its D here-I thought active/active HA is designed for high availability so figured it would cover multiple zones if set up right. Always paired firewalls for redundancy, just assumed that works in the cloud too. Not 100% though, maybe I’m mixing up on-prem vs CSPs. Anyone else use D in practice?

Alex R. Oct 17, 2026 4:33 pm

Shouldn't it be C here? Active/active HA (D) sounds right at first but only works within one AZ on most CSPs, since you can't stretch a traditional HA pair across zones. The trap is thinking D fits multi-AZ when it really doesn't with how the infrastructure separates resources.

Be respectful. No spam.

Correct Answer:

Explanation

In public cloud environments (CSPs like AWS, Azure, and GCP), traditional Layer 2 high availability mechanisms (such as floating MAC addresses or gratuitous ARPs) are typically unsupported across different Availability Zones (AZs) due to underlying software-defined networking constraints. To achieve cross-AZ high availability, Palo Alto Networks recommends a load-balancer-based architecture. This involves deploying independent VM-Series firewalls across multiple AZs and utilizing cloud-native load balancers (e.g., AWS Gateway Load Balancer or Azure Standard Load Balancer). These load balancers use health probes to continuously monitor the status of each firewall instance. If a firewall experiences an outage, the health probe fails, and the load balancer automatically redirects traffic to healthy firewalls residing in other AZs, ensuring seamless redundancy and robust high availability.

Why Incorrect

A: Ansible is an automation and configuration management tool used for deployment, not a network mechanism that dynamically routes traffic or provides HA during failures. B: Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool. Additionally, this option explicitly limits redundancy to a single availability zone, directly contradicting the question's multi-AZ requirement. D: Traditional PAN-OS Active/Active HA clustering requires Layer 2 adjacency and dedicated HA links, which are architecturally restricted or unsupported across different AZs in public clouds.

References

1. Palo Alto Networks. (2023). VM-Series Deployment Guide. Section: "High Availability for VM-Series Firewall." This official documentation details how cloud-native load balancers and health probes are the validated design for achieving multi-AZ high availability, bypassing CSP Layer 2 limitations.

2. Palo Alto Networks. (2022). Reference Architecture: Securing Amazon Web Services. Section: "Inbound/Outbound Traffic Flows and Load Balancing." Explains the use of AWS Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB) and health checks to maintain HA across multiple AWS Availability Zones.

3. Palo Alto Networks. (2022). Reference Architecture: Securing Microsoft Azure. Section: "Multi-Zone High Availability." Describes the necessity of Azure Standard Load Balancers with TCP/HTTP health probes to route traffic around failed VM-Series instances across different Azure zones.

Palo Alto Networks NGFW-Engineer Real Exam Questions [October 2026 Update] Quiz

When deploying Palo Alto Networks NGFWs in a cloud service provider (CSP) environment, which method ensures high availability (HA) across multiple availability zones?

Premium Access Includes