A system designer needs to factor in CIA requirements for a new SAN. Which of the CIA requirements is BEST met by multipathing?

Confidentiality is protected through encryption and access controls, not path redundancy; multipathing does not encrypt or restrict access to data in transit.

Authentication is not a component of the CIA triad; the triad consists of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

Integrity ensures data is not altered without authorization, which is addressed through checksums and hashing mechanisms, not redundant I/O paths.

Multipathing configures multiple independent network or fiber channel paths between servers and a SAN so that if any single path fails due to hardware, cable, or switch issues, I/O continues uninterrupted over the remaining paths. This directly fulfills the Availability requirement of the CIA triad by ensuring continuous access to storage. It has no bearing on data confidentiality or integrity.