When designing networks intended to carry real-time media that is critical to arrive several aspects must be considered. For instance, the network must have redundant connectivity, should this traffic (and if so, how) be prioritized in networks where other traffic also travel, which technology is best in the given situation etc. This report will describe technologies that can solve these problems after which some of some of them will be tested in laborations to see how well they measure up in a given problem. The report establishes that in a self-governed LAN link aggregation in collaboration with Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol is a solid solution for providing redundancy with fast reconvergence. On WAN-connections and other shared networks Quality of Service rules should be implemented and in the case of Internet Service Providers a Service Level Agreement should be established.

This thesis deals with theoretical analysis of First Hop Redundancy Protocols. It describes Hot Standby Router Protocol, Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol and Gateway Load Balancing Protocol. It also shows examples of configuration of each protocol on Cisco devices with supported version of the Cisco IOS. Furthermore, this thesis includes design of two of these protocols, Hot Standby Router Protocol and Gateway Load Balancing Protocol, and their implementation in discrete event simulator OMNeT++ and Automated Network Simulation and Analysis library. Finally, the thesis presents results of testing of the implementations in comparison with actual Cisco devices.