The goal for any network designer is to strive to build a resilient network that...

A soft failure refers to a condition where the network continues to operate, but performance or behavior is degraded in a way that is not immediately visible or detectable—this includes suboptimal routing, misconfigured protocols, or resource inefficiencies. These are harder to define and detect because they don ' t cause total outages but still impact user experience or service quality. In contrast, hard failures like outages (Option D) are more visible and measurable.

This aligns with CCDE v3.1’s guidance on resilience, observability, and performance-aware design, emphasizing proactive identification of non-fatal but service-impacting anomalies.

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