📖 About this Domain
This domain covers the fundamental concepts of network device architecture, including the control, data, and management planes. It also introduces network programmability and automation using APIs like RESTCONF and NETCONF, and explores the features of Cisco platforms such as IOS XE, DNA Center, and Meraki.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn to interpret the results of RESTCONF and NETCONF requests, focusing on data encoding, headers, and return codes.
- You will learn to differentiate the roles and functions of the management, control, and data planes within a network device.
- You will learn to interpret the output of Python scripts that utilize Cisco SDKs for device configuration and data retrieval.
- You will learn to describe the programmability features of key Cisco platforms, including Cisco IOS XE, DNA Center, SD-WAN, and Meraki.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build the skill to analyze API responses from network devices to troubleshoot automation scripts.
- You will build the skill to identify which device plane is responsible for specific network functions like routing protocol updates or packet forwarding.
- You will build the skill to recognize the appropriate Cisco platform and its specific APIs for a given automation task.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Focus on understanding the distinct functions of the control plane (e.g., OSPF, BGP), data plane (e.g., CEF), and management plane (e.g., SSH, SNMP).
- Practice interpreting JSON and XML data structures, as they are fundamental to RESTCONF and NETCONF operations.
- Familiarize yourself with common HTTP status codes and NETCONF RPC error messages to quickly diagnose API request failures.
- Review the key programmability features and API endpoints for Cisco DNA Center and Meraki dashboards, as these are common automation targets.
📖 About this Domain
This domain covers the foundational building blocks of modern networks. You will explore network components, architectures, and the core protocols that enable communication. It establishes the essential knowledge for understanding IP connectivity and Ethernet operations.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn to identify the roles of core network devices like routers, L3 switches, and access points in different network topologies.
- You will learn to compare TCP and UDP transport layer protocols and their operational characteristics.
- You will learn to implement IPv4 and IPv6 addressing schemes, including subnetting and address type identification.
- You will learn fundamental switching concepts such as MAC learning, frame switching, and virtualization basics with virtual machines.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build the skill to configure and verify IPv4 and IPv6 addressing on network devices and client operating systems.
- You will build the skill to differentiate between network architectures like 3-tier, spine-leaf, and SOHO.
- You will build the skill to identify physical layer issues related to cabling, collisions, interface errors, and duplex mismatches.
- You will build the skill to explain the operation of a switch's MAC address table and the process of frame flooding.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Master binary math for efficient IPv4 subnetting and variable-length subnet mask (VLSM) calculations.
- Use command-line tools like ipconfig, ifconfig, and ping to verify IP parameters and connectivity on client OS.
- Practice identifying IPv6 address types, including global unicast, unique local, link-local, and Modified EUI-64.
- Create diagrams of different network topologies like spine-leaf and 3-tier to visually understand data flow and device roles.
📖 About this Domain
This domain covers application deployment and security fundamentals. It focuses on CI/CD pipelines, containerization using Docker, and various deployment models like cloud and edge. Key topics include handling API authentication and identifying common security vulnerabilities.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- Differentiate between application deployment models such as private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, and edge computing.
- Describe the components of a CI/CD pipeline including source control, build, artifact, package, test, and deployment.
- Utilize Docker commands to manage the lifecycle of images and containers and understand the components of a Dockerfile.
- Identify common application security risks based on the OWASP Top 10 and describe the use of secrets in scripts.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- Construct a Python script that calls a REST API requiring an authentication token or credentials.
- Manage container lifecycles using core Docker commands for building, running, and inspecting containers.
- Use application-level security tools like Bandit to perform static analysis and check for common vulnerabilities in code.
- Analyze and select appropriate deployment types, including virtual machines, bare metal, and containers, for specific use cases.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Get hands-on practice with Docker commands; build images from a Dockerfile and manage running containers.
- Write and debug Python scripts that interact with authenticated REST APIs to understand secret management.
- Memorize the stages of a CI/CD pipeline and the purpose of each component, from code commit to deployment.
- Familiarize yourself with the OWASP Top 10 to quickly identify common application security flaws.
📖 About this Domain
This domain covers Cisco's intent-based networking architectures and platforms. It focuses on the functions of Cisco DNA Center, SD-Access, and SD-WAN for network automation and management.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- Learn the core functions of Cisco DNA Center, including device discovery, inventory, topology, and Software Image Management (SWIM).
- Understand the concepts of Cisco SD-Access, including the underlay, overlay, and fabric architecture.
- Identify the architectural planes of Cisco SD-WAN: orchestration (vBond), management (vManage), control (vSmart), and data (vEdge).
- Describe the use of APIs for programmability and automation within Cisco DNA Center and vManage.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- Ability to differentiate the operational planes and components within a Cisco SD-WAN deployment.
- Skill to explain the function of the underlay and overlay in a Cisco SD-Access fabric.
- Competency in identifying the primary automation and assurance capabilities of Cisco DNA Center.
- Understanding of how REST APIs are utilized in Cisco's software-defined networking solutions.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Memorize the specific roles of vManage, vSmart, vBond, and vEdge in the SD-WAN architecture.
- Focus on the key assurance and automation features of DNA Center, like SWIM and device provisioning.
- Understand the integration points between SD-Access, DNA Center, and ISE for policy and identity.
- Clearly distinguish between the management, control, data, and orchestration planes for both SD-Access and SD-WAN.
📖 About this Domain
This domain focuses on Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for software development and automation. It covers REST API fundamentals, including request construction and HTTP response interpretation. You will explore API styles, usage patterns, and programmatic interaction.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- Learn to construct REST API requests with correct HTTP methods, headers, and body based on API documentation.
- Learn to parse HTTP responses by identifying status codes, headers, and the JSON or XML body.
- Learn to identify common API patterns like data retrieval, data updates, and event-driven webhooks.
- Learn to compare API styles such as REST and RPC, and communication patterns like synchronous and asynchronous.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- Build the ability to read API documentation and translate requirements into functional API calls.
- Build the skill to write a Python script using the requests library to consume a REST API.
- Build the skill to debug API communication issues by analyzing HTTP response codes and payloads.
- Build the ability to differentiate between API architectural styles for specific use cases.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Utilize Postman or a similar API client to practice sending requests and inspecting responses from public APIs.
- Memorize the meaning of common HTTP status code families like 2xx for success, 4xx for client errors, and 5xx for server errors.
- Gain hands-on experience with the Python requests library, focusing on methods like requests.get() and requests.post().
- Understand the key characteristics that differentiate REST from other API styles, particularly its stateless nature.
📖 About this Domain
This domain covers foundational software development and design principles for network automation. It focuses on data formats, development lifecycles, code organization, and version control with Git.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- Compare and parse data formats like JSON, XML, and YAML into native Python data structures.
- Differentiate software development methods such as agile, lean, and waterfall.
- Understand the benefits of organizing code into methods, functions, classes, and modules.
- Utilize common Git operations including clone, commit, push, pull, branch, and merge.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- Manipulate structured data from APIs and configuration files using Python.
- Apply concepts of software development lifecycles to automation projects.
- Structure Python code for modularity, reusability, and maintainability.
- Manage code versions and collaboration using Git for infrastructure as code.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Practice parsing sample JSON, XML, and YAML data with Python libraries like json, xml.etree.ElementTree, and pyyaml.
- Initialize a local Git repository and execute all core commands: add, commit, branch, merge, and resolve a merge conflict.
- Compare the iterative nature of agile against the sequential flow of waterfall for different project scenarios.
- Refactor a monolithic script into separate functions and modules to understand code organization principles.
