What is the purpose of a failover order in NIC teaming?

The purpose of a failover order in NIC teaming is primarily to ensure that network traffic can be seamlessly redirected in the event of a network link failure. This is crucial for maintaining high availability and redundancy in a virtualized environment. When multiple physical network interface cards (NICs) are teamed together, the failover order specifies which NICs should be used for outgoing traffic and in what sequence. If the primary NIC fails, traffic can immediately be routed through the next NIC in the failover order, minimizing downtime and preserving connectivity for virtual machines.

While the other options touch on aspects of network management, they do not pertain directly to the concept of failover order. Bandwidth allocation relates to how network throughput is managed among NICs, while speed of data transfer can depend on various factors including network configuration but does not connect to the failover mechanism itself. Network security and access restrictions are managed differently through policies and configurations that do not involve the specific role of defining failover priorities in NIC teaming. Thus, understanding the failover order emphasizes its role as a safeguard against network interruptions rather than security measures or performance metrics.