Exam Profile: CCIE Routing and Switching v4.0 Lab Exam (350-001)

Date: Jun 20, 2011

This article profiles the Cisco CCIE Routing and Switching v4.0 Lab 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.

After many years building networking experience, I took the Routing & Switching CCIE lab exam back in 1998. The technologies were different from today, but the challenges still the same, just on a different technology environment. My experience also comes from having managed the CCIE Routing and Switching track at Cisco for several years, as well as an author and technical reviewer for Cisco Press.

Passing on any CCIE lab exam is a very difficult task and requires a good combined amount of time on studying, experience, and hands-on practice. The CCIE Program and CCIE R&S lab exam were first introduced and it has been a standard on hands-on testing for more than 18 years.

The CCIE R&S lab exam is currently at version 4.0. The exam covers layer 2 switching, IPv4, IPv6, MPLS layer 3 VPNs, IP Multicast, Network Security, Network services, QoS, Troubleshooting, and Network monitoring. Considering this is a hands-on expert level exam, the level of detail can be extreme, and the scope of the questions can be very complex.

Exam Details

Types of Questions: The exam is presented in two sections, the Troubleshooting and Configuration sections:

The Troubleshooting questions are presented on a form of trouble-tickets on a pre-configured network, so you need to identify and fix the problems. The TS lab section uses a virtual environment under Cisco’s IOU platform which offers a simulation of router (Layer 3) features and switches (Layer 2) features, on a virtual environment.

The Configuration section questions are presented on a form of tasks specifications under certain criteria. The Configuration lab section utilizes actual physical devices in racks.

Number of Questions: The exam is presented a series of tasks covering different areas, and the number of questions varies.
Passing Score: You most achieve 80% exam score to pass, combined between the Troubleshooting and Configuration sections.

Each question, on each section of the exam has a specific criteria and it is important you do pay attention on those criteria. The questions are mostly graded based on ultimate results or outcomes. Proctors use automatic tools to help gather exam results but the final decision is ultimately made by the proctor.

Candidates can request a reevaluation of their lab results within 14 days after a lab attempt.

Candidates must wait 30 days on failed exams to retake it.

Cost: $1,400.00 (Costs may vary due to exchange rates and local taxes (VAT, GST)). The cost is per lab attempt and does not include travel and lodging expenses.
Time Limit: eight-hour hands-on exam, divided in two parts: a two-hour Troubleshooting section followed by a six-hour configuration section.
How to Register: For additional information on how to schedule your lab exam, lab locations, payment options, etc., visit the CCIE R&S section at the Cisco Learning Network

Trouble Spots

You have eight hours to complete the lab exam: two hours of Troubleshooting (TS), followed by a six-hour Configuration section. If you finish the TS lab section in less the two hours, you can start working on the Configuration section; however, the remaining time you did not spend on the TS lab will not carry over to the Configuration lab: it is still limited to its six hours. Also, all the questions on both lab sections will be presented electronically on-screen for you; there are no booklets with a paper doc with the questions.

Time management is crucial for your success during both lab sections. You must be well prepared not to waste time on those questions you find easier or moderate in difficult level. You should avoid getting stuck on a question, so balancing and tracking the time is very important. Be sure to contact the lab proctor as soon you suspect something is wrong, such access to an IOU virtual router in the TS lab or a physical router on the Configuration lab.

Since the exam is graded based on outcomes or working results (functionality), you can virtually grade your exam as you go. For example, if a TS trouble ticket states “router A cannot reach (ping) router B”, you find the issue, and you are able to ping between router A and router B, then you know you answered correctly.

Consider taking a couple of sort breaks during the exam. It is a long exam, and it is easy to get your mind exhausted. Many times, I have seen candidates stuck on a question because a configuring mistake (for example, a routing protocol), and they cannot see what is wrong. Just taking a five minute break can help you refresh your thoughts, and you may find what is wrong.

Preparation Hints

The CCIE R&S lab exam is an expert level exam, and there is no one book or training course that will have all of the information, lab exercises or sample questions you need in order to pass this exam. One way to help build the knowledge foundation for the exam comes from your real-world experience and a lot of hands-on practice preparation.

A proper study plan should have a mix of reading, taking courses, and hands-on experience. Hands-on experience or practice helps build the knowledge and retain the theoretical concepts you gather from reading and courses.

Set aside 3 to 4 hours per day to study if you are planning to take the lab exam within 4 to 5 months. Just remember that when you get close to your lab exam date (15 to 20 days), you will need to add more hours; have a couple of 8-hour time slot to practice once a week. And, the week before the exam you should slow down a bit as you need to save all your energy for the day of the exam.

Different study methods work different for different people, but here is what I usually suggest to CCIE candidates:

Have your study material ready: books, technical documents, and access to Cisco.com documentation, and Cisco switches documentation.
Have access to a practical lab or a set of routers and switches.
Have the CCIE R&S Blueprint v4.0 ready (listed below in the Exam Objectives Section).
Divide the blueprint in modules as you feel comfortable; for example, 1) VLANs and VTP; 2) Trunk and Etherchannel; 3) Spanning Tree; 4) OSPF, and so on.
Stick to one module in one of your study time slots. Use either the reading material (or documents) and the practice lab. While you are reading your docs, create a scenario to practice on your lab. This will help you learn how the technology works and their different behaviors. This will avoid your feeling the need to go back or start from scratch. Also, this approach will help you to prepare for the Troubleshooting section, as you see yourself unexpected situations and behaviors as you practice.
Once you have finished all the modules for 'Implementing Layer 2 Technologies,' create a scenario to practice that involves all topics for this section of the blueprint. With this you have covered everything you need for the first section.
Repeat this for all sections of the blueprint, and after couple of weeks you will have covered the entire blueprint.
The next step is to create scenarios that involve most of the blueprint so it will look like the actual lab exam. Again, you can use the 3 to 4 hour time slot to practice; however, I suggest you take a 8-hour slot when you get close to take the exam.

Recommended Study Resources

I recommend the following study references:

Routing TCP/IP, Volume 1 , 2nd Edition by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer Carroll
Routing TCP/IP, Volume 2 , 2nd Edition by Jeff Doyle and Jennifer Carroll
Internet Routing Architectures, 2nd Edition by Sam Halabi
CCIE Routing and Switching Practice Labs (Digital Cut) by Martin J. Duggan

Additionally, I recommend you explore the following:

Cisco’s CCIE R&S recommended book list
The CCIE R&S online resources and go through the Switching section
The Certification Ask the Expert forum discussions
CCIE Routing and Switching Study Group

For training I suggest you to look at:

Exam Objectives

The following information provides general guidelines for the content likely to be included on the 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.

Implement Layer 2 Technologies

Implement Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

802.1d
802.1w
801.1s
Loop guard
Root guard
Bridge protocol data unit (BPDU) guard
Storm control
Unicast flooding
Port roles, failure propagation, and loop guard operation

Implement VLAN and VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP)
Implement trunk and trunk protocols, EtherChannel, and load-balance
Implement Ethernet technologies

Speed and duplex
Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and Gigabit Ethernet
PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE)

Implement Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN), Remote Switched Port Analyzer (RSPAN), and flow control
Implement Frame Relay

Local Management Interface (LMI)
Traffic shaping
Full mesh
Hub and spoke
Discard eligible (DE)

Implement High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC) and PPP

Implement IPv4

Implement IP version 4 (IPv4) addressing, subnetting, and variable-length subnet masking (VLSM)
Implement IPv4 tunneling and Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)
Implement IPv4 RIP version 2 (RIPv2)
Implement IPv4 Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

Standard OSPF areas
Stub area
Totally stubby area
Not-so-stubby-area (NSSA)
Totally NSSA
Link-state advertisement (LSA) types
Adjacency on a point-to-point and on a multi-access network
OSPF graceful restart

Implement IPv4 Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)

Best path
Loop-free paths
EIGRP operations when alternate loop-free paths are available, and when they are not available
EIGRP queries
Manual summarization and autosummarization
EIGRP stubs

Implement IPv4 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

Next hop
Peering
Internal BorderGateway Protocol (IBGP) and External Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP)

Implement policy routing
Implement Performance Routing (PfR) and Cisco Optimized Edge Routing (OER)
Implement filtering, route redistribution, summarization, synchronization, attributes, and other advanced features

Implement IPv6

Implement IP version 6 (IPv6) addressing and different addressing types
Implement IPv6 neighbor discovery
Implement basic IPv6 functionality protocols
Implement tunneling techniques
Implement OSPF version 3 (OSPFv3)
Implement EIGRP version 6 (EIGRPv6)
Implement filtering and route redistribution

Implement MPLS Layer 3 VPNs

Implement Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
Implement Layer 3 virtual private networks (VPNs) on provider edge (PE), provider (P), and customer edge (CE) routers
Implement virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) and Multi-VRF Customer Edge (VRF-Lite)

Implement IP Multicast

Implement Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) sparse mode
Implement Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP)
Implement interdomain multicast routing
Implement PIM Auto-Rendezvous Point (Auto-RP), unicast rendezvous point (RP), and bootstrap router (BSR)
Implement multicast tools, features, and source-specific multicast
Implement IPv6 multicast, PIM, and related multicast protocols, such as Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD)

Implement Network Security

Implement access lists
Implement Zone Based Firewall
Implement Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (uRPF)
Implement IP Source Guard
Implement authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) (configuring the AAA server is not required, only the client-side (IOS) is configured)
Implement Control Plane Policing (CoPP)
Implement Cisco IOS Firewall
Implement Cisco IOS Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)
Implement Secure Shell (SSH)
Implement 802.1x
Implement NAT
Implement routing protocol authentication
Implement device access control
Implement security features

Implement Network Services

Implement Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP)
Implement Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP)
Implement Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)
Implement Network Time Protocol (NTP)
Implement DHCP
Implement Web Cache Communication Protocol (WCCP)

Implement Quality of Service (QoS)

Implement Modular QoS CLI (MQC)

Network-Based Application Recognition (NBAR)
Class-based weighted fair queuing (CBWFQ), modified deficit round robin (MDRR), and low latency queuing (LLQ)
Classification
Policing
Shaping
Marking
Weighted random early detection (WRED) and random early detection (RED)
Compression

Implement Layer 2 QoS: weighted round robin (WRR), shaped round robin (SRR), and policies
Implement link fragmentation and interleaving (LFI) for Frame Relay
Implement generic traffic shaping
Implement Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP)
Implement Cisco AutoQoS

Troubleshoot a Network

Troubleshoot complex Layer 2 network issues
Troubleshoot complex Layer 3 network issues
Troubleshoot a network in response to application problems
Troubleshoot network services
Troubleshoot network security

Where to Go from Here

The CCIE is a very prestigious and recognized certification, and passing the CCIE R&S lab exam puts you with a great advantage on the job market.

There are numerous resources for CCIE certification on the Internet and a good place to start is the Cisco Press CCIE study page.