Exam Profile: Cisco 200-301 CCNA
By Wendell Odom
Date: Aug 8, 2019
The Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification has long been the starting point for Cisco certifications. In June 2019, Cisco announced changes—changes that Cisco will make on Feb 24, 2020—which impact almost every aspect of Cisco's many certifications. Those changes include significant changes to the CCNA certification, along with a new exam: the CCNA 200-301 exam.
Perspective: The Old CCNA Family
Cisco first introduced the CCNA certification back in 1998. Over the years, Cisco has released a new version of that certification, with new exams, seven more times, most recently in 2016 with the 200-125 exam.
Over the years, Cisco began adding different technologies into their product line—so they also created CCNA certifications to match, like CCNA Data Center and CCNA Security. To remove ambiguity with all these different CCNA certifications, Cisco renamed the age-old original CCNA certification became known as "CCNA Routing and Switching" about the year 2007.
Cisco's 2019 certification announcements completely revamp the entire CCNA lineup. First, Cisco plans to stop offering almost all the existing CCNA certifications. The plan includes leaving one consolidated CCNA certification, so with all the others gone, Cisco will call this new certification by the old simple name: CCNA.
As for the timing, Cisco announced the changes in June 2019 but also announced that nothing changes until February 24, 2020. During the transition period, you can still pursue the then-current certifications, with the traditional certifications and exams being retired on transition day, and the new exams being available on that day.
The New and Only CCNA
Cisco's announcement messaging about the new CCNA describes the plan as a consolidation. The consolidation does not take every exam topic from all existing CCNA certifications into one exam. Instead, what Cisco describes is this:
CCNA consolidates the skills from across all areas, focusing on the fundamental skills when starting in networking.
This article explores in more detail the topics inside this new certification exam.
CCNA 200-301 Content
As with all Cisco's exam blueprints, the official Cisco 200-301 blueprint breaks the exam topics into Domains, each with an assigned point percentage. When you take the exam, the behind-the-scenes process that chooses the questions you see should choose questions that give you these percentage of available points from your exam:
- 20%: Domain 1: Network Fundamentals
- 20%: Domain 2: Network Access
- 25%: Domain 3: IP Connectivity
- 10%: Domain 4: IP Services
- 15%: Domain 5: Security Fundamentals
- 10%: Domain 6: Automation and Programmability
Breaking down the domains a little more specifically, a couple of key points can be helpful:
Domain 1, Network Fundamentals, mentions some of the most basic topics, but it includes technology from across all five of the other domains.
Domain 2, Network Access, includes LAN access technologies, about 60% Ethernet and about 40% Wireless LAN by exam-topic count (which may not indicate the scoring weights).
Domain 5, Security Fundamentals, includes traditional routing and switching security topics, like device login and switch Port Security, with some topics found in CCNA Security in the past.
Domain 6, Automation and Programmability, definitely has topics related to automation, as well as background topics to help you understand automation and programmability—but no actual programming.
For more detail on the exam topics, check https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccna-cert/ccna-exam/exam-topics.
Cisco tells us that the new, one-and-only CCNA includes the content that hiring managers want their entry-level network engineers to have so that they can then be directed to specialize, possibly into one of the technologies of the five remaining CCNP tracks: Enterprise, Service Provider, Data Center, Security, and Collaboration.
CCNA 200-301 Compared to CCNA R&S
Many of you who read this article will have some idea about the CCNA Routing and Switch (R&S) certification that existed in 2019, and up through Feb 23, 2020, until the Cisco certification transition day. So, one way to get a sense of what this new CCNA 200-301 exam includes is to compare the new CCNA 200-301 exam to the old CCNA R&S 200-125 exam.
I did that kind of analysis as part of my observations when creating the new CCNA 200-301 Official Cert Guides (Volumes 1 and 2), and found:
65%: Traditional Routing and Switching
If you look at the new CCNA 200-301 as 100%, then my estimates show 65% of the CCNA 200-301 exam as routing and switching topics. Not only that, the vast majority of the routing and switching topics exist in the old CCNA 200-125 exam. (I see a little new content about OSPF and a new mention of Power-over-Ethernet.)
10%: Wireless LANs (mostly new)
The old CCNA 200-125 exam had very little content about wireless LANs, but the new CCNA 200-301 blueprint has much more. The CCNA 200-301 blueprint spreads the wireless LAN topics around domains 1, 2, and 5, so you cannot just look at the blueprint and get a Cisco-approved percentage for the wireless topics. However, based on book chapters and page counts in the new CCNA 200-301 certification guides, I call the total wireless content roughly 10% of the new exam.
10-20%: Security (mostly old)
Cisco does have one domain that appears to be about security, but security can be a problematic topic area to measure for an exam. For instance, are IP Access Control Lists a security feature or a routing feature? So, I thought about all the topics that might or might be considered to be security, and I did some estimates to come out to 10-20% of the new CCNA 200-301 exam, all depending on how you might categories each exam topic.
However, for all the CCNA 200-301 topics that that you could consider to be a security topic, most exist in the old CCNA R&S 200-125 exam. For example, the new CCNA 200-301 continues to cover: IP Access Control Lists (ACLs), password security, and switch Port Security. New topics for CCNA 200-301 include security policies and dynamic ARP Inspection.
10%: Automation and Programmability (mostly new)
The old CCNA R&S 200-125 exam includes a few topics related to network automation. By volume, the new CCNA 200-301 exam significantly increases the number, so much so that Cisco gives automation it's a separate domain, with Cisco marking that domain as 10% of the exam.
As for the topics, the new CCNA 200-301 exam includes the foundational topics from the old CCNA R&S 200-125 exam about controllers, APIs, and SDN architecture. CCNA 200-301 then adds several topics, including fabrics, REST APIs and CRUD verbs, as well as data models like JSON.
Exam and Certification Details
- Exam Number: 200-301
- 120 minutes
- Number of Questions: Unstated to date
- Question types: Multiple Choice (single and multiple answers), drag-and-drop, Sim, Simlet, Testlet (see exam tutorial videos here)
- Passing score varies, but it is traditionally around 800-850 out of 1000
- Multiple languages
- Register at pearsonvue.com
- Certification achieved: Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)
Note that with the old CCNA R&S certification, Cisco gave us two different paths to achieve the certification: a 2-exam path and a 1-exam path. For the new CCNA certification, there is only the 1-exam path.
CCNA 200-301 as a Stepping Stone
In the past, and up through transition day (February 24, 2020), Cisco certification candidates had many choices after getting their CCNA Routing and Switching certification. Those options narrow as of transition day, with the most likely choice being to pursue one of the five future CCNP certifications. As mentioned earlier, Cisco will remove most of the existing other CCNA certifications (CCNA Cyber Ops is probably not being retired). Cisco also plans to consolidate the existing CCNP tracks into the following:
- Enterprise (like the old Routing and Switching track)
- Data Center
- Service Provider
- Collaboration
- Security
To pursue these tracks, keep two important facts in mind moving forward.
- CCNP Certification no longer requires CCNA Certification. In the past, you had to be CCNA certified to become CCNP certified in the same technology. No more. If you can pass the tests associated with a CCNP, you get that CCNP—no prerequisites at all. However...
- CCNP Certification does require CCNA knowledge and skills. You still need to know the CCNA topics to succeed in most of the new CCNP certifications. So, you could bypass taking the CCNA 200-301 exam, but you probably could not bypass learning the material before pursuing CCNP.
So why did Cisco choose not to require CCNA certification anymore? They saw the prerequisite as a barrier for some people. Imagine you'd been working as a network engineer for eight years and knew CCNA-level content well—but didn't know a few of the small topics. However, you were interested in some CCNP topics. Cisco wanted to remove the barrier of making that person learn CCNA topics just to be allowed to pursue CCNP.
Recommended Study Resources
Cisco Press is producing book, eBook, simulator software, and video training titles in support of the new CCNA exam, and they will release over the course of the next several months. Check back for updated links from this page when new titles become available for pre-order or purchase.
The CCNA 200-301 Certification Library (estimated release: December 2019*) is a boxed set with two books inside. The CCNA 200-301 exam, while a single exam, contains a large number of topics. To make using the books more manageable, Cisco Press provides the content in two books: Volume 1 (pre-order now!) and Volume 2 (estimated release: December 2019*). Volume 1 contains most of the content about traditional routing, switching, and wireless LANs, with Volume 2 discussing security, IP Services, architecture, and automation-related topics. Note that you will be able to buy both volumes individually, in print and eBook form. Cisco Press offers the eBooks as Premium Edition eBook and Practice Test products—all popular eBook formats plus extra test questions.
These products will also help round out your study library, with extra reference and practice tools:
The CCNA 200-301 Portable Command Guide (estimated release: December 2019*) summarizes all CCNA certification-level Cisco IOS® Software commands, keywords, command arguments, and associated prompts.If you need help organizing, preparing, and reviewing all the CCNA objectives, use 31 Days Before Your CCNA Exam (estimated release: June 2020*).
The CCNA 200-301 Complete Video Course and Practice Test (estimated release: December 2019*) gives you a comprehensive, self-directed video course about the new CCNA 200-301 exam.
If you are new to networking, you may want to check out the CCNA 200-301 Foundations LiveLessons: A Pre-CCNA Review of Networking Fundamentals (estimated release: September 2019*). This title will walk you through the pre-requisite knowledge needed before beginning your CCNA study.
* Titles and release dates subject to change.