Implementing Cisco Enterprise Network Core Technologies (350-401 ENCOR)

What you will practice:

• Enterprise design principles
• High-level enterprise designs 2-tier, 3-tier, fabric, cloud
• What problems each model solves

• Enterprise design principles
• High-level enterprise designs: 2-tier, 3-tier, fabric, cloud
• What problems each model solves (scale, segmentation, resiliency, operational simplicity)
• Where each is typically used (campus vs DC vs hybrid/cloud edge)
• Key design tradeoffs (cost vs complexity vs convergence vs fault domains)
• High availability techniques: redundancy, FHRP, SSO
• Redundancy patterns: device redundancy, link redundancy, path diversity
• First Hop Redundancy Protocols (conceptual role in HA, gateway resiliency)
• Stateful Switchover (SSO) concept and why it matters for uptime

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• Catalyst SD-WAN working principles
• Control plane vs data plane elements
• Control-plane roles and how policies/intent are distributed

• Catalyst SD-WAN working principles
• Control plane vs data plane elements (what each plane does, who participates)
• Control-plane roles and how policies/intent are distributed
• Data-plane forwarding behavior and traffic engineering intent
• Benefits and limitations of Catalyst SD-WAN
• Why SD-WAN is adopted (policy at scale, path selection, app awareness, centralized control)
• Limitations/constraints (operational dependencies, design constraints, migration considerations)

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• SD-Access working principles
• Control plane vs data plane elements in SD-Access
• How fabric intent is built, distributed, and enforced

• SD-Access working principles
• Control plane vs data plane elements in SD-Access
• How fabric intent is built, distributed, and enforced (high-level)
• How endpoints are learned/segmented in a fabric design (conceptual)
• Traditional campus interoperating with SD-Access
• Coexistence patterns: where traditional switching/routing ends and fabric begins
• Migration and boundary considerations (segmentation, routing handoff, operational workflows)

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• Interpret QoS configurations
• Identify QoS building blocks in configurations
• Classification and marking concepts

• Interpret QoS configurations
• Identify QoS building blocks in configurations (recognize intent from CLI)
• Classification and marking concepts (how traffic is identified and labeled)
• Queuing and congestion management concepts (how priority and fairness are enforced)
• Policing vs shaping concepts (rate enforcement vs smoothing)
• Map QoS configuration intent to outcomes (latency/jitter-sensitive vs bulk traffic)

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• Device virtualization technologies
• Hypervisors Type 1 vs Type 2
• Architectural difference and typical enterprise usage implications

• Device virtualization technologies
• Hypervisors: Type 1 vs Type 2
• Architectural difference and typical enterprise usage implications
• Virtual machines (VM concepts relevant to network engineers)
• VM resource abstraction (vCPU, vNICs, virtual disks) and impact on networking
• Virtual switching
• Switching inside a hypervisor and how traffic hits the physical network (high-level)

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• Configure and verify data-path virtualization
• VRF
• Segregated routing tables, overlapping IP addressing use cases

• Configure and verify data-path virtualization
• VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding)
• Segregated routing tables, overlapping IP addressing use cases
• Route leaking concepts (controlled inter-VRF communication)
• Verification mindset (confirming isolation and correct table usage)
• GRE tunneling
• Encapsulation purpose and common design scenarios
• IPsec tunneling
• Why encrypt tunnels, basic components and verification intent (conceptual)

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• Network virtualization concepts
• LISP
• Separation conceptsand why it helps in scalable mobility/segmentation designs

• Network virtualization concepts
• LISP
• Separation concepts (identity vs location) and why it helps in scalable mobility/segmentation designs (high-level)
• VXLAN
• Overlay network concept, why overlays scale segmentation across L3 underlays
• Where VXLAN shows up (campus/DC overlays, fabric-style designs)

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• Layer 2core operations
• Troubleshoot 802.1Q trunking
• Mismatches and misconfig patterns

• Layer 2 (L2) core operations
• Troubleshoot 802.1Q trunking (static and dynamic)
• Mismatches and misconfig patterns (allowed VLANs, native VLAN, encapsulation expectations)
• How to validate trunk state and VLAN propagation from outputs
• Troubleshoot EtherChannel (static and dynamic)
• Typical causes of bundle failure (inconsistent config, LACP negotiation issues)
• Verification approach (port-channel state, member consistency)
• Configure and verify STP (RSTP, MST) + enhancements
• RSTP vs MST: why MST exists and what it changes operationally
• Enhancements: root guard and BPDU guard (what each protects against)
• Interpret STP states/roles and convergence expectations

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• Layer 3routing core
• Compare EIGRP and OSPF routing concepts
• Advanced distance-vector vs link-state

• Layer 3 (L3) routing core
• Compare EIGRP and OSPF routing concepts
• Advanced distance-vector vs link-state (how they compute paths)
• Load balancing approaches and path selection logic
• Metrics, operations, and (for OSPF) the importance of area concepts
• Configure OSPFv2/v3 with multiple normal areas
• Neighbor adjacency requirements and common failure causes
• Network types: point-to-point and broadcast; passive-interface use
• Summarization and filtering (where applied and why)
• Configure and verify eBGP (directly connected neighbors)
• Neighbor relationships and what must be true for peering
• Best-path selection algorithm (high-level reasoning to predict route choice)
• Policy-based routing (PBR)
• Use cases: steer traffic by source/app/ACL match rather than destination-only logic
• IP Services
• Time services: interpret NTP and PTP configurations
• NAT/PAT configuration
• FHRP configuration: HSRP, VRRP
• Multicast protocol awareness: RPF check, PIM SM, IGMP v2/v3, SSM, bidir, MSDP
• Recognize what each component is used for in enterprise multicast designs

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.

What you will practice:

• A) Network Assurance
• Diagnose network problems using debugs, conditional debugs, traceroute, ping, SNMP, syslog
• Configure/verify Flexib…

• A) Network Assurance
• Diagnose network problems using: debugs, conditional debugs, traceroute, ping, SNMP, syslog
• Configure/verify Flexible NetFlow
• Configure SPAN/RSPAN/ERSPAN
• Configure/verify IP SLA
• Describe how Cisco Catalyst Center (DNA Center) is used for configuration/monitoring/management using traditional + AI-powered workflows
• Configure/verify NETCONF and RESTCONF
• B) Security
• Device access control:
• Lines and local user authentication
• AAA authentication/authorization
• Infrastructure security features:
• ACLs
• Control Plane Policing (CoPP)
• REST API security (high-level)
• Components of network security design: threat defense, endpoint security, NGFW, TrustSec, MACsec
• C) Automation and Artificial Intelligence
• Interpret basic Python components/scripts
• Construct valid JSON files
• Principles/benefits of data modeling (e.g., YANG)
• APIs for Cisco Catalyst Center and SD-WAN Manager
• Interpret REST API response codes + payload results (Catalyst Center + RESTCONF)
• Construct an EEM applet for automation (config, troubleshooting, data collection)
• Compare agent vs agentless orchestration tools

Tip: After topic practice, do mixed sets under time pressure and review missed questions immediately.