Which statement best describes NIC teaming?

• A. NIC teaming reduces overall bandwidth for traffic shaping.
• B. It disables redundant paths to simplify topology.
• C. It increases latency by distributing across NICs.
• D. NIC teaming aggregates multiple network interfaces to increase bandwidth and provide redundancy.

Answer: (D)

NIC teaming is the practice of combining several network interfaces into one logical link to boost capacity and add redundancy. By grouping multiple NICs, traffic can be spread across them, increasing the total available bandwidth between the host and the network. If one NIC or its path fails, the remaining interfaces continue to carry traffic, providing failover protection. This often requires switch support (like link aggregation protocols) to negotiate the bundle and balance traffic effectively.

So the statement that NIC teaming aggregates multiple network interfaces to increase bandwidth and provide redundancy is the best description. It’s not about reducing bandwidth or disabling redundancy; NIC teaming aims to improve throughput and resilience. While there may be a small processing overhead, NIC teaming is designed to decrease vulnerability to individual NIC or link failures and, in many setups, to improve overall network performance.