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CCIE Service Provider Lab Exam

Exam: Cisco CCIE SP Lab - CCIE SP Lab

Certification overview

The Cisco Internetwork Expert Certified or CCIE is a technical certification offered by Cisco. This certification shows experts capabilities to plan, exploit and troubleshoot complex network and networking infrastructures based on a large variety of Cisco systems and equipments. The Cisco CCIE Service Provider is recognized as the most prestigious certification in the IT industry as far as network systems are concerned. This certification gives value to specific skills and knowledge on networks. It takes a long road to get to this certification and less than 3% of IT engineers are holders of this certification. This is only attributed by Cisco.

The CCIE security lab certification path is divided into seven precise domains including Routing and amp; Commutation; service provider; security provider; service provider operations, collaboration/voice; Data Center and wireless. These are the actual certification ranges covered by the Cisco CCIE. Over the past time, the certification path has been modified and updated to match perfectly the IT requirements and demands. That is how the ISP/ Dial, the SNA/IP Integration, Storage Networking and WAN Commutation have been retired from the list.

  • SNA/IP Integration: semi-officially this was called the Bleu CCIE security lab certification due to the fact that it was based on IBM technologies.
  • Storage Networking: this was specialized in the implementation and implementing networks of storage zone. IT certified were experts in LAN, MAN and WAN as well as channel fiber, FCIP, ISCSI and FICON technologies. They are experts in types 2 and 3 network infrastructures.

Who can do this certification?

Any IT personnel who desire to add to his or her working chart as an expert in SP (Service Provider) network and build rich and well constructed infrastructures delivering good services. They will know how to ascertain networking issues by providing the best designed SP architectures.

Benefits

As for other Cisco certifications, IT individuals gain proper recognition in the desire fields. Moreover, the sector of network and networking systems are in great demand of experts. The certainty they will have jobs and opportunities is so high. Being the highest level of certification in the Cisco pathway, those people are able to set their contract and determine the amount they want to get paid for the provided services.

Associated Exam

To get certified there are two types of examinations that one must take; the written exam and the lab exam. These are two different exams. There are the 400-201 CCIE SP exam and the lab exam v4.

Prerequisites

There’s no official demand before entering the training path. Other certifications or professional training are not taking into account as requirements for the certification. Although, candidates are required to pass the qualification written exam set as a questionnaire and then the lab exam set by a jury. Candidates should have strong knowledge on the approached terms of the field. It’s also recommended to have at least three years of working experience before getting enrolled in the certification process.

Examination Overview

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

The modules of the lab exam are:

  • Troubleshoot
  • Diagnostic
  • Configuration

The lab exam has duration of eight hours. It requires the candidate to optimize, troubleshoot, diagnose, and configure a series of composite network settings for a particular specification supported by dual stack solutions (IPv4 and IPv6). Troubleshooting is the most critical part of the exam. Candidates are called to recognize and solve issues during the exam.

During the troubleshoot module candidates are tested on their abilities to quickly solve network problems. They are to demonstrate and apply troubleshooting methodologies, use IOS troubleshooting techniques and technologies from listed blueprint. They are to fix and verify solutions for the network problems.

In the Diagnosis module, candidates assess his knowledge in analyzing; discerning various sources of documentation such email threads, console outputs etc. that is diagnosis of network issues.

The configuration module is dependant from the other two. Here candidates design the appropriate solutions to SP backbone taking into consideration constraints from the design. They verify the functionality of the devices used for the test.

Validity of the certification

The CCIE certification is valid for two years. After 2 years experts are asked to recertify.

Expert Review

With this certification, you are really involved in the IT domains as an expert.

Rose Luna,

Student, Los Angeles