CCIE SERVICE PROVIDER TRACK

Effective February 1, 2007, the SP WAN Switching Exam no longer qualifies a candidate for the CCIE SP lab exam, but can be used for recertification only. The SP WAN Switching written exam has 100 multiple-choice questions and is two hours in duration. Half of the questions cover general knowledge on IP networking and the other half covers the specific technology area, which appears below. The topic areas listed are general guidelines for the type of content that is likely to appear on the exam. Please note, however, that other relevant or related topic areas may also appear.

1. Cisco Device Operation
   1. Commands: show, debug
   2. Infrastructure: NVRAM, Flash, Memory & CPU, file system, config reg
   3. Operations: file transfers, password recovery, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), accessing devices, security (passwords)
   
   
2. General Networking Theory
   1. OSI model: Layer comparisons, functions
   2. General Routing Concepts: Split horizon, difference between switching and routing, summarization, Link State vs. Distance Vector, loops, tunneling
   3. Protocol comparisons: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), etc.
   4. Standards: 802.x, protocol limitations
   5. Protocol Mechanics: Windowing/Acknowledgements (ACK), fragmentation, maximum transmission unit (MTU), handshaking, termination
   
   
3. Bridging & LAN Switching
   1. Transparent Bridging: IEEE/DEC spanning tree, Configuration Bridging Protocol Data Unit (BPDU), Integrated Routed and Bridging (IRB), Concurrent Routing and Bridging (CRB), access lists
   2. LAN Switching: Trunking, VLAN Trunk Protocol (VTP), inter-switch link (ISL), Virtual LANs (VLANS), Fast Ether Channel (FEC), Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), Cisco Group Management Protocol (CGMP)
   
   
4. Internet Protocol (IP)
   1. Addressing: Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR), subnetting, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), Network Address Translation (NAT), Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP)
   2. Services: Domain Name System (DNS), Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
   3. Applications: Telnet, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)
   4. Transport: IP fragmentation, sockets, ports
   5. Access Lists
   
   
5. IP Routing Protocols
   1. MPLS
   2. Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP): Metrics, mechanics, & design
   3. Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS): Metrics, mechanics, & design
   4. Routing Information Protocol (RIP) & RIP v2: : Metrics, mechanics, & design
   5. Multicast: Design, Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM - both sparse and dense), Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP), Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
   6. Access lists: distribute lists, route maps, policy routing, redistribution, route tagging
   7. Open Shortest Path First (OSPF):
      1. Design: areas, virtual links, stub, not so stubby areas (NSSA), area border router (ABR) / autonomous system boundary router (ASBR) redistributions, media dependencies, external vs. internal, summarization
      2. Operation: Designated Router (DR), Backup Designated Router (BDR), adjacencies, link-state advertisement (LSA) types, link-state database, shortest path first (SPF) algorithm, authentication
   8. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP):
      1. Design: Peer Groups, Route Reflectors, Confederations, Clusters, Attributes, Autonomous Systems (AS)
      2. Operation: Route Maps, Filters, Neighbors, decision algorithm, Interior Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP), Exterior Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP)
      3. Multi-protocol BGP - Multicast and VPN Address families
      
      
6. Performance Management
   1. Traffic Management: Queuing, Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ), Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), traffic shaping, load balancing ,congestion management
   
   
7. WAN (addressing, signaling, framing)
   1. ISDN: Link Access Procedure on the D channel (LAPD), Basic Rate Interface (BRI) / Primary Rate Interface (PRI) framing, signaling, mapping, dialer map, interface types, B/D channels, PPP Multilink
   2. Frame relay: Local Management Interface (LMI), Data Link Connection Identifier (DLCI), Permanent Virtual Circuit (PVC), framing, traffic shaping, forward explicit congestion notification (FECN), backward explicit congestion notification (BECN), CIR, discard eligible (DE), mapping, compression
   3. ATM: Switched Virtual Connection (SVC) / Permanent Virtual Connection (PVC), ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL), Service Specific Connection Oriented Protocol (SSCOP), User-Network Interface (UNI) / Network-Network Interface (NNI), Interim Local Management Interface (ILMI), Cell format, Quality of Service (QoS), RFC 1483 & 1577, Private Network-Network Interface (PNNI), Interim-Interswitch Signaling Protocol (IISP), mapping
   
   
8. Cisco Specific/Device Operation
   1. Commands - auto route connection routing
   2. Infrastructure
   3. Connection Routing
   4. IPX/BPX
   5. 8220
   6. 8250
   7. 8230
   8. 8850
   9. Trunks - IGX/BPX
   10. Connection Types
       1. One Segment
       2. Two Segment
       3. Three Segment
       4. Loads used
       5. Frame forwarding
   11. Operations
       1. Oversubscription
       2. Cisco proprietary
   
   
9. ATM
   1. Physical Layer
      1. Line rates and bit timing
      2. HEC
      3. Cell delineation
   2. ATM Layer
      1. Traffic shaping
      2. ATM cell structure and encoding
   3. ATM Layer Management Specification
      1. ATM layer management information flows
      2. ATM OAM cell format
      3. ATM fault management functions at the UNI alarm surveillance
      4. Connectivity verification
      5. End-to-end loopback / UNI loopback
   4. Traffic and Congestion Control
      1. QoS
      2. Network performance and cell loss priority
      3. Traffic parameters and descriptors
      4. PCR, SCR, CDVT, BT, MBS, CLP
      5. GCRA, UPC, CAC
   5. Internetworking
      1. Service internetworking
      2. Network internetworking
      3. IETF standards (RFC 1483, 1577, etc.)
   6. Services
      1. Circuit emulation
      2. ABR
      3. CBR
   7. Adaption Layer (between B and C)
   
   
10. Frame Relay
    1. Frame Format
    2. Signalling
       1. LMI - counters and timers
       2. Different LMI types
    3. Addressing
       1. Global vs. local
       2. Allowable ranges / reserved
    4. Congestion Management
       1. Standards-based
       2. FECN and BECN
    
    
11. Voice
    1. PCM
    2. Compression
    3. Echo Cancellation
    4. Interface Types
       1. 4W E&M
       2. FXO / FXS
    5. Distortion
    6. Levels
    7. Voice Over X
       1. AL2
       2. VOIP
       3. ATM
    8. Signaling
       1. MGCP
       2. SGCP
    
    
12. Transmission and Telco Services
    1. Alarms
    2. T1
    3. T3
    4. E1
    5. E3
    6. Sonet and SDH
       1. Signaling
       2. Framing
       3. Synchronization
       4. Differences between STM-1-x, OC3 vs. OCRc vs. STM-1, OAM
    7. Clocking
       1. Isochronous vs. plesiocronous
       2. Asyncronous
       3. Slips
       4. Stratum layers
    
    
13. PNNI
    1. GCAC
    2. Signaling
    3. Routing
    4. TDL's
    5. Addressing
    
    
    
14. MPLS
    1. Label distribution methods
    2. MPLS labels on ATM / MPLS