McAfee Secured

CCIE Service Provider exam

Exam: Cisco 350-029 - CCIE SP Written

It’s well known in the IT industry that the CCIE exam certification has a great value. This certification was introduced in 1993 to help the industry make a clear distinction among its personnel. All IT certified individuals have expertise in networks and networking systems. This certification is divided into several domains such as:

  • CCIE Data Center: ensures that they are able to prepare, make functional, verify, and troubleshoot networks from complex data center.
  • CCIE Security: IT certified people are able to implement security structures within the system. They troubleshoot integrated environments and understand common threats and know how to attenuate the threats issues.
  • CCIE Routing and Switching: this certification shows that the professional is able of installing, configuring, making a router operational and taking care of troubleshooting switched and medium-size routed networks
  • CCIE Service Provider Operations: professional holders of this certification are capable of troubleshooting and maintaining complex network service provider operations. They have solid knowledge on PE PE and PE CE network architectures in both Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XR environments.
  • CCIE VOICE: also called CCIE Collaboration, it focuses on high level expert on Cisco Voice products as well as IP solutions in an enterprise network. IT certified individuals are able to configure and implement fine structure to troubleshoot and resolve issues related to VoIP within telephony network.
  • CCIE WIRELESS: this certification is an accreditation to IT workers embedded in the network and wireless technologies areas. This focuses on WLAN technologies based on Cisco equipments.

The one of interest here, the CCIE Service Provider focuses on the necessary tools and skills to implement the expertise in the domain of network service provider and related services. Experts have skills and knowledge with fundamentals on IP technologies and the ability to establish vast rich network to ensure good quality in service provider services. They possess important knowledge on technologies like MPLS, VPN, and service level contracts ad package-based security.

Those who succeed in clearing this certification are most likely to become:

  • Service Provider expert
  • Service provider architecture engineer
  • Service provider management expert

Required Exams

To get this certification one should pass two CCIE exams; the written and the CCIE lab exam. The written examination is divided into the following topics:

  1. Service Provider Architecture and Evolution
  2. Core routing
  3. Service Provider-Based Services
  4. Access and Aggregation
  5. High availability and Fast Convergence
  6. SP Security, SP Operation and Management

It’s important to notice that the actual exam has been updated from the previous version 3 which has seven topics including:

  1. Describe, Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot L3VPN Technologies
  2. Describe, Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot L2VPN Technologies
  3. Describe, Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Access and Edge Connection Technologies
  4. Describe Service Provider Network Implementing Principles
  5. Describe, Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Core IP Technologies
  6. Describe, Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Remote Access Technologies
  7. Describe, Implement, Optimize and Troubleshoot Managed Service Traversing the Core

The third version explains clearly what type of skills and knowledge students acquire from the training and what they are supposed to show during the examination. The fourth version of the exam has all the elements of the third with additional topics (1&6). This is a summarize list of topics covered by the exam. The written exam cost is approximately $400 US per tentative. This is not an official price though it is subjected to changes due to location, learning center and taxes. The exam is presented as a questionnaire of about 90 to 110 questions. There is just one passing score threshold for this exam.

On the other hand, the lab exam has each module with an allocated passing score. To pass this, candidates should attain the set passing score for each module. The lab exam on the other has three modules named troubleshoot, diagnostic and configuration respectively. This exam can cost up to $1400 US per tentative.

Required courses

The courses needed to complete the training are set by Cisco itself. They are designed in a correlated fashion to help the student achieve his goal. The lists of all the courses you have to attain are on the Cisco learning platform website with all the objectives and requirements. These can be taken in a class or online with constant assistance of IT experts.

Study material

The required materials are available at the site of study. The books you have to use are listed and sometimes handed to you by one way or the other.