Looking over the questions asked to Maurilio Gorito during the latest R&S Ask The Expert Session, I tried to summarize some information and outline the new exam format. Here is how it looks to me so far.
The exam consists of three sections. A candidate must obtain the PASS mark in *every* section in order to pass the exam. All three sections are tested in sequence and grading occurs in the end of the exam. Even if the candidate fails in any of the section, he won’t know about this until the exam ends and grading has been performed. A candidate may finish any section in advance and move forward to the next section, which might be considered a time-management strategy. However, the candidate is not allowed to return to any previous section after it’s finished.
The following is the list of the exam sections:
(1) Open Ended Questions (OEQ) (0.5 hours): Four questions in total; A candidate needs to answer three questions out of four correctly to get the PASS mark in this section. A human grades the results. Most times, an answer could be as short as two or three words. Questions deal with the understanding of the theoretical concepts of the lab exam and don’t require intensive memorizing. The only tool the candidate has access to will be Windows Notepad, and no access to the DocCD is provided during this section.
(2) Troubleshooting Section (2 hours). Initial configurations are loaded in the candidate’s rack, and the candidate is presented with a troubleshooting scenario, formatted as a series of trouble-tickets. Additionally, L2/L3 & IGP diagrams are presented for reference. The section consists of approximately 10-15 tickets. Every ticket has point value associated with it and tickets DO NOT depend on each other (this is important to avoid cascading effects). The results are graded by the verification script and confirmed by a human. A relative score of 80% of the total section score must be obtained to get the PASS mark for this section. It is important to understand that this section is completely independent of Configuration section that follows.
(3) Configuration Section (5,5 hours). This is a new scenario on a new logical topology, different from the one presented during the Troubleshooting section. Of course, this section has its own initial configuration, which most likely includes IP addressing and basic IGP/BGP settings. The formatting is similar to the old exam, with the tasks, point allocation per task, diagrams and so on. The approximate number of tasks here is 25-30. The section results are graded by the verification script and confirmed by a human. A relative score of 80% must be obtained to get the PASS mark for this section.
It is rumored, by not confirmed officially that the OEQ section has 21 points and the Troubleshooting + Configuration section has 79 points allocated. This allocating may probably change with time, but apparently the fact that all task points sum to 100 remains true. And again, you have to obtain approximately 80% points in every section (around 80 points total) to pass the exam.
Finally, for the new topics being added to the exam. It appears that major stress will be on new routing features, such as MPLS VPN and EIGRPv6. However, the MPLS VPN tasks will be pretty basic, not covering any advanced scenarios such as CsC, InterAS VPN, mVPN, MPLS TE and so forth. For the other new technologies added to the lab:
1) PfR (Performance Routing). Should be pretty basic, and does not require any deep knowledge of PfR. Will not appear in all labs.
2) Security feautures: IPS and Zone-Based Firewall are NOT covered in-deph as well. Only basic configuration of the IPS feature is required with no deep understanding of the signature engines and signature tuning. Most likely you just need to know the basic configuration scenarios and be able to copy-adapt-paste the configuration samples from the DocCD.
3) 802.1x IBNS. All you need is to know how to set up the 802.1X control. No RADIUS server will be present in the lab, so this part is pretty basic as well.
4) SDM will not be present in the lab ISRs, so all configurations are purely CLI-based.
I’ll be updating this post to reflect any new information posted in the NetPro forum thread.
The exam consists of three sections. A candidate must obtain the PASS mark in *every* section in order to pass the exam. All three sections are tested in sequence and grading occurs in the end of the exam. Even if the candidate fails in any of the section, he won’t know about this until the exam ends and grading has been performed. A candidate may finish any section in advance and move forward to the next section, which might be considered a time-management strategy. However, the candidate is not allowed to return to any previous section after it’s finished.
The following is the list of the exam sections:
(1) Open Ended Questions (OEQ) (0.5 hours): Four questions in total; A candidate needs to answer three questions out of four correctly to get the PASS mark in this section. A human grades the results. Most times, an answer could be as short as two or three words. Questions deal with the understanding of the theoretical concepts of the lab exam and don’t require intensive memorizing. The only tool the candidate has access to will be Windows Notepad, and no access to the DocCD is provided during this section.
(2) Troubleshooting Section (2 hours). Initial configurations are loaded in the candidate’s rack, and the candidate is presented with a troubleshooting scenario, formatted as a series of trouble-tickets. Additionally, L2/L3 & IGP diagrams are presented for reference. The section consists of approximately 10-15 tickets. Every ticket has point value associated with it and tickets DO NOT depend on each other (this is important to avoid cascading effects). The results are graded by the verification script and confirmed by a human. A relative score of 80% of the total section score must be obtained to get the PASS mark for this section. It is important to understand that this section is completely independent of Configuration section that follows.
(3) Configuration Section (5,5 hours). This is a new scenario on a new logical topology, different from the one presented during the Troubleshooting section. Of course, this section has its own initial configuration, which most likely includes IP addressing and basic IGP/BGP settings. The formatting is similar to the old exam, with the tasks, point allocation per task, diagrams and so on. The approximate number of tasks here is 25-30. The section results are graded by the verification script and confirmed by a human. A relative score of 80% must be obtained to get the PASS mark for this section.
It is rumored, by not confirmed officially that the OEQ section has 21 points and the Troubleshooting + Configuration section has 79 points allocated. This allocating may probably change with time, but apparently the fact that all task points sum to 100 remains true. And again, you have to obtain approximately 80% points in every section (around 80 points total) to pass the exam.
Finally, for the new topics being added to the exam. It appears that major stress will be on new routing features, such as MPLS VPN and EIGRPv6. However, the MPLS VPN tasks will be pretty basic, not covering any advanced scenarios such as CsC, InterAS VPN, mVPN, MPLS TE and so forth. For the other new technologies added to the lab:
1) PfR (Performance Routing). Should be pretty basic, and does not require any deep knowledge of PfR. Will not appear in all labs.
2) Security feautures: IPS and Zone-Based Firewall are NOT covered in-deph as well. Only basic configuration of the IPS feature is required with no deep understanding of the signature engines and signature tuning. Most likely you just need to know the basic configuration scenarios and be able to copy-adapt-paste the configuration samples from the DocCD.
3) 802.1x IBNS. All you need is to know how to set up the 802.1X control. No RADIUS server will be present in the lab, so this part is pretty basic as well.
4) SDM will not be present in the lab ISRs, so all configurations are purely CLI-based.
I’ll be updating this post to reflect any new information posted in the NetPro forum thread.
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