Exam Profile: CCNP Voice CVOICE 642-437

Date: May 27, 2011

This article profiles the Cisco CCNP Voice CVOICE 642-437 exam. Pearson IT Certification provides a variety of exam preparation tools to help our customers in their quest for certification. As part of our service to you, we have developed this Exam Profile series. Each profile is developed based on the testing experience of one of our trainers or authors. You won’t get exact questions or answers, but you will get a real feel for the exam. Each profile describes question forms, trouble spots, hints for exam preparation, and recommendations for additional study resources. Find out what you can expect to see on the exam and how you can better prepare for it.

The Cisco 642-437 exam is one of the required exams for certification as a Cisco Certified Network Professional Voice (CCNP Voice). The exam will test your knowledge of various components of such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, Cisco Unified Border Elements, Gateways, Gatekeepers, QoS, and Dial plan components.

Exam Details

Types of questions: Multiple choice (single and multiple answers), Drag and drops, interpret outputs
Number of questions: 60 -70
Time limit: 90 minutes
Passing Score: varies
How to register: PearsonVue

Trouble Spots

There are several areas on the exam that may prove difficult:

Quality of Service (QoS): You will need to know how to configure QoS and when it should be deployed. The Command syntax for QoS will be an area you must be good with as well.
Commands: It’s no secret that Cisco loves to have you choose the proper command. You need to be very comfortable with commands in order to have a chance of passing this exam.
Dial Plans: You must be able to configure dial plan components on any device presented on the exam. If you’re not comfortable with dealing with dial-peers and other components, you will have problems.
Protocols: These could present some issues if you’re not familiar with them. You will need to understand how they operate and what scenarios they are deployed. The standard ones include H.323, SIP, SCCP, MGCP, and RTP. These protocols might be very vague or they could be in detail, so make sure you know them well.

It helps to be aware of how Cisco writes their questions. You will need to carefully examine the question to best decide how to answer it. Some of the questions will probably look very close with only a few words that will totally change the answer.

Preparation Hints

The Cisco Learning Network lists the areas that you will be tested on. The candidate should familiarize themselves with those. The things that I feel you need to have a firm grasp on are varied. The biggest trouble spot for people is the way in which Cisco words their questions. Anyone that has taken a Cisco test will recognize the style of questions, and you should be able to narrow down the possible answers if you have studied well enough. Again you should not be surprised by any questions you are asked. I have taken about 20 Cisco exams over the years, and I still get confused by the way questions are presented. The way to overcome this is to know the information they will possibly test you on very well.

As with any test, your preparation will decide success or failure. The first thing you will need to do is develop a study plan for this exam; a good method is to start by dividing the topics into sections. Knowing your subject is the most important and is crucial to success. The commands that are associated with CVOICE 8.0 should be practiced over and over until you can recognize any discrepancies on the exam that will help you isolate the correct answer. The next thing that will help is to practice setting up a CUCME from scratch a few times. This knowledge will prove vital during the exam. Dial-peers are another thing you should practice; try creating enough dial-peers that you are tired of creating them. Once you have mastered dial-peers, move on to e-phones. Practice configuring a few e-phones and their options.

QoS is another area you should be very familiar with. The QoS implemented on Cisco devices hasn’t changed in a long time. Cisco use to have an entire test on QoS, so count yourself lucky you’re not taking the old exam. However, you will need to study all resources that will assist you mastering QoS. The QoS on the exam must not be taken lightly, as there will probably be a good number of questions about it within the test. When learning QoS, you need to find ways to memorize the exact commands; the choices you will have will look very similar. Another area you will need to know is the various QoS methods and how the function. Areas that should be studied are the main QoS methods and when they should be used, and how to implement them. This goes back to the point earlier that you will need to know topics well.

Dial plans are a huge part of the CVOICE 8 exam. The area is vast and requires a good study approach. Questions about dial plans can cover a range of areas, including permissions, dial-peers, translation patterns, etc. the areas of concern will most likely be translations. You should be able to decrypt translation in CLI. The process of how gateways handle inbound and outbound calls should be second nature. Another aspect of dial plans will be the steps required to complete calls according to the requirements. You should be able to do this on any device, CUCME, CUBE, and Gateways. It would be safe to assume that there will be quite a few questions dealing with dial plan components.

Codecs are also a subject that can be tested on the exam. It would be in your best interest to learn the formula for calculating the number of calls that can be sent across links, depending on the codec, link speed and other options. The formula should be practiced until you are good with these calculations. The information you use for this should give you a good foundation to deal with any codec questions.

Signaling is a required knowledge for the exam. You should be able to explain how signaling between different components work. The exam might ask you to what signaling you should use in certain areas of a network. The signaling can deal with T1 circuits, PBX, and gateways.

VLAN questions can be included on your exam. This area should come easily; make sure you have a firm grasp on the concept and how to configure them.

Cisco Unified Communications Express, as one might expect, is also a major test area. The knowledge required here should include the commands to fully setup the CUCME. If you know the commands needed to make the CUCME fully functional, you’re ahead of the curve. The candidate will be tested on interactions with other devices within the network, depending on the functions being provided. One area you will need to know when dealing with CUCME is how the phones operate and their configurations. You should be able to analyze portions of the running configuration and resolve missing commands.

Resources

There are a few good resources that will help you succeed with this exam; the list here is not complete by any means. You should choose the resources that will best help you learn the topics.

The Cisco Learning Network is a website dedicated to Cisco Certifications. Here you’ll find the exam that Cisco offers and the other resources. Some of the areas are Study groups, Questions and answers, and general help with the Certification process. In order to fully utilize this site you will need to create a login.

Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager Part 1(CIPT 1), Authorized Self-Study Guide: The core knowledge you learn from this book will help with the current exam.

Voice over IP Fundamentals, 2nd Edition: Chapters 8, 11, and 12 will provide good information on QoS, SIP, and H.323.

QoS Exam Certification Guide, 2nd Edition: This book will provide valuable information on QoS.

Exam Topics

The following information provides general guidelines for the content likely to be included on the 642-437 CVOICE v8.0 exam. However, other related topics may also appear on any specific delivery of the exam. In order to better reflect the contents of the exam and for clarity purposes the guidelines below may change at any time without notice.

Describe a dial plan

Describe a numbering plan
Describe digit manipulation
Describe path selection
Describe calling privileges

Describe the basic operation and components involved in a VoIP call

Describe VoIP call flows
Describe RTP, RTCP, cRTP, and sRTP
Describe H.323
Describe MGCP
Describe Skinny Call Control Protocol
Describe SIP
Identify the appropriate gateway signaling protocol for a given scenario
Choose the appropriate codec for a given scenario
Describe and Configure VLANs

Implement Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express to support endpoints using CLI

Describe the appropriate software components needed to support endpoints
Configure DHCP, NTP and TFTP
Describe the differences between the different types of ephones and ephone-dns
Configure Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express endpoints

Describe the components of a gateway

Describe the function of gateways
Describe DSP functionality
Describe the different types of voice ports and their usage
Describe dial peers and the gateway call routing process
Describe codecs and codec complexity

Implement a gateway

Configure analog voice ports
Configure digital voice ports
Configure dial-peers
Configure digit manipulation
Configure calling privileges
Verify dial-plan implementation
Implement fax support on a gateway

Implement Cisco Unified Border Element

Describe the Cisco Unified Border Element features and functionality
Configure Cisco Unified Border Element to provide address hiding
Configure Cisco Unified Border Element to provide protocol and media interworking
Configure Cisco Unified Border Element to provide call admission control
Verify Cisco Unified Border Element configuration and operation

Describe the need to implement QoS for voice and video

Describe causes of voice and video quality issues
Describe how to resolve voice and video quality issues
Describe QoS requirements for voice and video traffic

Describe and configure the DiffServ QoS model

Describe the DiffServ QoS model
Describe marking based on CoS, DSCP, and IP Precedence
Configure layer 2 to layer 3 QoS mapping
Describe trust boundaries
Configure trust boundary on Cisco switches
Describe the operations of the QoS classifications and marking mechanisms
Describe Low Latency Queuing
Describe the operations of the QoS WAN Link Efficiency mechanisms
Enable QoS mechanisms on switches using AutoQoS
Configure Low Latency Queuing

Where to go from here

Hopefully, you will continue on the path to CCNP Voice. Here are the other exams required for this certification:

642-447 CIPT1 v8.0: Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Part 1 v8.0 (CIPT1 v8.0)
642-457 CIPT2 v8.0: Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Part 2 v8.0 (CIPT2 v8.0)
642-427 TVOICE v8.0: Troubleshooting Cisco Unified Communications v8.0 (TVOICE v8.0)
642-467 CAPPS v8.0: Integrating Cisco Unified Communications Applications v8.0 (CAPPS v8.0)

Good luck on your future studies.