ESRP Failover time is largely determined by the following factors:
The failover time associated with the ESRP protocol depends on the timer setting and the nature of the failure. The default hello timer setting is two seconds; the range is 2-1024 seconds. The default neighbor timer setting is eight seconds; the range is 3*hello to 1024 seconds. The failover time depends on the type of event that caused ESRP to failover. In most cases, a non-hardware failover is less than one second, and a hardware failover is eight seconds.
If routing is configured, the failover of the particular routing protocol (such as RIP V1, RIP V2, or OSPF) is added to the failover time associated with ESRP.
If you use OSPF, make your OSPF configuration passive. A passive configuration acts as a stub area and helps decrease the time it takes for recalculating the network. A passive configuration also maintains a stable OSPF core.
For more information about the ESRP timers and configuring the ESRP timers, see ESRP Configuration Overview.