CCNP Routing and Switching ROUTE 300-101 Official Cert Guide (2015)

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How to Take the ROUTE Exam

As of the publication of this book, Cisco exclusively uses testing vendor Pearson Vue (www.vue.com) for delivery of all Cisco career certification exams. To register, go to www.vue.com, establish a login, and register for the 300-101 ROUTE exam. You also need to choose a testing center near your home.

Who Should Take This Exam and Read This Book

This book has one primary audience, with several secondary audiences. First, this book is intended for anyone wanting to prepare for the ROUTE 300-101 exam. The audience includes self-study readers—people who pass the test by studying 100 percent on their own. It includes Cisco Networking Academy students taking the CCNP curriculum, who use this book to round out their preparation as they get close to the end of the Academy curriculum.

The broader question about the audience might well be why you should take the ROUTE exam. First, the exam is required for the aforementioned CCNP and CCDP certifications from Cisco. These certifications exist at the midpoint of the Cisco certification hierarchy. These certifications have broader and deeper technology requirements as compared to the Cisco Certified Entry Network Technician (CCENT) and Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certifications.

The real question then about the audience for this book—at least the intended audience—is whether you have motivation to get one of these professional-level Cisco certifications. CCNP in particular happens to be a popular, well-respected certification. Also, CCDP has been a solid certification for a long time, particularly for engineers who spend a lot of time designing networks with customers, rather than troubleshooting.

Format of the CCNP ROUTE Exam

The ROUTE exam follows the same general format as the other Cisco exams. When you get to the testing center and check in, the proctor will give you some general instructions and then take you into a quiet room with a PC. When you’re at the PC, you have a few things to do before the timer starts on your exam. For example, you can take a sample quiz, just to get accustomed to the PC and to the testing engine. Anyone who has user-level skills in getting around a PC should have no problems with the testing environment.

When you start the exam, you will be asked a series of questions. You answer the question and then move on to the next question. The exam engine does not let you go back and change your answer.

The exam questions can be in any of the following formats:

Multiple-choice (MC)

Testlet

Drag-and-drop (DND)

Simulated lab (Sim)

Simlet

The first three types of questions are relatively common in many testing environments. The multiple-choice format simply requires that you point and click on a circle (that is, a radio button) beside the correct answer for a single-answer question or on squares (that is, check boxes) beside the correct answers for a multi-answer question. Cisco traditionally tells you how many answers you need to choose, and the testing software prevents you from choosing too many answers. Testlets are questions with one general scenario, with a collection of multiple-choice questions about the overall scenario. Drag-and-drop questions require you to left-click and hold a mouse button, move an object (for example, a text box) to another area on the screen, and release the mouse button to place the object somewhere else—typically into a list. For some questions, as an example, to get the question correct, you might need to put a list of five things into the proper order.

The last two types both use a network simulator to ask questions. Interestingly, the two types actually allow Cisco to assess two very different skills. First, sim questions generally describe a problem, and your task is to configure one or more routers and/or switches to fix the problem. The exam then grades the question based on the configuration that you changed or added. The simlet questions might well be the most difficult style of question on the exams. Simlet questions also use a network simulator, but instead of answering the question by changing the configuration, the question includes one or more MC questions. The questions require that you use the simulator to examine the current behavior of a network, interpreting the output of any show commands that you can remember to answer the question. Although sim questions require you to troubleshoot problems related to a configuration, simlets require you to both analyze working networks and networks with problems, correlating show command output with your knowledge of networking theory and configuration commands.

The Cisco Learning Network website (http://learningnetwork.cisco.com) has tools that let you experience the environment and see how each of these question types works. The environment should be the same as when you passed CCNA (a prerequisite for CCNP and CCDP).

CCNP ROUTE 300-101 Official Cert Guide

This section lists a general description of the contents of this book. The description includes an overview of each chapter and a list of book features seen throughout the book.

Book Features and Exam Preparation Methods

This book uses several key methodologies to help you discover the exam topics on which you need more review, to help you fully understand and remember those details, and to help you prove to yourself that you have retained your knowledge of those topics. Therefore, this book does not try to help you pass the exams only by memorization but by truly learning and understanding the topics.

The book includes many features that provide different ways to study and be ready for the exam. If you understand a topic when you read it, but do not study it any further, you will probably not be ready to pass the exam with confidence. The features included in this book give you tools that help you determine what you know, review what you know, better learn what you don’t know, and be well prepared for the exam. These tools include

“Do I Know This Already?” Quizzes: Each chapter begins with a quiz that helps you determine the amount of time that you need to spend studying that chapter.

Foundation Topics: These are the core sections of each chapter. They explain the protocols, concepts, and configurations for the topics in that chapter.

Exam Preparation Tasks: The “Exam Preparation Tasks” section lists a series of study activities that should be done after reading the “Foundation Topics” section. Each chapter includes the activities that make the most sense for studying the topics in that chapter. The activities include

Planning Tables: The ROUTE exam topics include some perspectives on how an engineer plans for various tasks. The idea is that the CCNP-level engineer in particular takes the design from another engineer, plans the implementation, and plans the verification steps—handing off the actual tasks to engineers working during change-window hours. Because the engineer plans the tasks, but might not be at the keyboard when implementing a feature, that engineer must master the configuration and verification commands so that the planned commands work for the engineer making the changes off-shift. The planning tables at the end of the chapter give you the chance to take the details in the Foundation Topics core of the chapter and think about them as if you were writing the planning documents.

Key Topics Review: The Key Topic icon is shown next to the most important items in the “Foundation Topics” section of the chapter. The Key Topics Review activity lists the key topics from the chapter and the page number where each key topic can be found. Although the contents of the entire chapter could be on the exam, you should definitely know the information listed in each key topic. Review these topics carefully.

Memory Tables: To help you exercise your memory and memorize some lists of facts, many of the more important lists and tables from the chapter are included in a document on the CD. This document lists only partial information, allowing you to complete the table or list. CD-only Appendix D holds the incomplete tables, and Appendix E includes the completed tables from which you can check your work.

Definition of Key Terms: Although Cisco exams might be unlikely to ask a question such as “Define this term,” the ROUTE exam requires that you learn and know a lot of networking terminology. This section lists some of the most important terms from the chapter, asking you to write a short definition and compare your answer to the Glossary on the enclosed CD.

CD-Based Practice Exam: The companion CD contains an exam engine, including access to a bank of multiple-choice questions. Chapter 18 gives two suggestions on how to use these questions: either as study questions or to simulate the ROUTE exam.

Companion Website: The website http://kwtrain.com/routebook posts up-to-the-minute materials that further clarify complex exam topics. Check this site regularly for new and updated postings written by the author that provide further insight into the more troublesome topics on the exam.

Book Organization

This book contains 18 chapters, plus appendixes. The topics all focus in some way on IP routing and IP routing protocols, making the topics somewhat focused, but with deep coverage on those topics.

The book organizes the topics into six major parts. The following list outlines the major part organization of this book:

Part I: “Fundamental Routing Concepts”: This part includes two chapters that focus on routing fundamentals within an enterprise network (including connections to remote offices):

Chapter 1: “Characteristics of Routing Protocols”: This introductory chapter is theory based and contains minimal Cisco IOS configuration. Specifically, the chapter reviews routing protocol characteristics. The last section of the chapter then introduces a newer routing technology, the ability to run multiple virtual routers inside a single physical router.

Chapter 2: “Remote Site Connectivity”: This chapter discusses how Virtual Private Networks (VPN) can be used to connect an enterprise headquarters to remote sites. While a variety of VPN technologies are discussed, the Cisco IOS configuration presented focuses on setting up a GRE tunnel.

Part II: “IGP Routing Protocols”: Because current versions of RIP, EIGRP, and OSPF support IPv6 routing (in addition to IPv4), this seven-chapter part begins with a review of IPv6 addressing and a look at RIPng configuration. Then, this part covers EIGRP and OSPF theory and configuration in detail:

Chapter 3: “IPv6 Review and RIPng”: The new version of the ROUTE curriculum dramatically increases the focus on routing IPv6 networks. Therefore, this chapter begins with a CCNA-level review of IPv6 addressing. Then, this chapter shows how to configure RIPng, which supports IPv6 routing (after contrasting RIPng with RIPv2).

Chapter 4: “Fundamental EIGRP Concepts”: This chapter reviews the basics of EIGRP, including EIGRP path selection and neighbor formation.

Chapter 5: “Advanced EIGRP Concepts”: This chapter discusses the details of how EIGRP builds its topology table, how those EIGRP-learned routes become candidates to be injected into a router’s IP routing table, and options for optimizing EIGRP convergence. Then, the chapter explores EIGRP route filtering, route summarization, and the use of default routes with EIGRP.

Chapter 6: “EIGRP for IPv6 and Named EIGRP”: This chapter begins by contrasting EIGRP for IPv4 and EIGRP for IPv6. Then, a hierarchical EIGRP configuration approach, called Named EIGRP, is demonstrated.

Chapter 7: “Fundamental OSPF Concepts”: This chapter reviews the basics of OSPF, including configuration, verification, and neighbor formation. The chapter then concludes with a look at virtual links.

Chapter 8: “The OSPF Link-State Database”: This chapter explains the various LSA types that OSPF uses to construct a link-state database. The process involved in exchanging link-state database routers with neighboring routers is also discussed.

Chapter 9: “Advanced OSPF Concepts”: This chapter discusses OSPF route filtering, route summarization, sourcing default route information, and special area types. Then, the chapter concludes with an examination of OSPFv3 and describes how it can be used to route IPv6 networks.

Part III: “Route Redistribution and Selection”: Because many enterprise networks need to simultaneously support multiple IGPs, this part begins by explaining how IGPs can coexist and be redistributed into one another. Then, the discussion delves into how a Cisco router makes its packet-switching decisions and how those decisions can be altered using the Policy-Based Routing (PBR) and IP Service-Level Agreement (IP SLA) features:

Chapter 10: “Route Redistribution”: This chapter offers an extensive look into route redistribution. Specifically, the chapter begins by explaining route redistribution basics, followed by configuring route redistribution into EIGRP, route redistribution into OSPF, and tuning route redistribution using route maps and distribute lists. Finally, this chapter discusses IPv6 IGP route redistribution.

Chapter 11: “Route Selection”: This chapter begins with a comparison of packet-switching technologies supported by Cisco IOS routers, with a focus on Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF). Then, this chapter discusses how a router’s route selection can be influenced with the use of the Cisco Policy-Based Routing (PBR) and IP Service-Level Agreement (IP SLA) features. Finally, this chapter concludes by examining a basic configuration of VRF-Lite, which can allow a single physical router to run multiple virtual router instances.

Part IV: “Internet Connectivity”: When an enterprise network connects to the Internet, it might do so through a single connection and a default static route. Such a connection often uses Network Address Translation (NAT). However, with multiple Internet connections, the enterprise network might need to run Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This part of the book examines both approaches to Internet connectivity (along with a discussion of NAT), including how BGP can connect to the Internet through IPv6:

Chapter 12: “Fundamentals of Internet Connectivity”: This chapter discusses how a network could connect to the Internet using a single connection, using either a statically assigned or a dynamically learned address. Additionally, this chapter contrasts various approaches to NAT configuration, including a new approach, called NAT Virtual Interface (NVI).

Chapter 13: “Fundamental BGP Concepts”: This chapter begins with an overview of Internet routing and addressing, followed by an introduction to BGP. Single-homed and multi-homed Internet connections are contrasted. Then, this chapter discusses a variety of external BGP (eBGP) configuration options.

Chapter 14: “Advanced BGP Concepts”: While BGP is primarily considered to be an exterior gateway protocol (EGP), internal BGP (iBGP) can be used within an autonomous system. This chapter examines the operation, configuration, and verification of iBGP. Then, this chapter discusses approaches for avoiding BGP routing loops, how to filter BGP routes, how BGP makes its route selection decisions, and how to administratively influence those decisions.

Chapter 15: “IPv6 Internet Connectivity”: As support for IPv6 continues to grow, enterprise networks have an increasing need to connect to their Internet Service Provider(s) through IPv6. This chapter discusses how an ISP could assign an IPv6 address to a customer router, and how that customer router could use a static, default IPv6 route to point to its ISP. Additionally, this chapter introduces Multiprotocol BGP (MP-BGP), which adds a collection of extensions to BGP version 4 and supports IPv6.

Part V: “Router and Routing Security”: Although Cisco has an entire CCNP Security track, the ROUTE curriculum, and this part of the book, does cover general strategies for better securing a Cisco router and authenticating routing protocols used between routers:

Chapter 16: “Fundamental Router Security Concepts”: This chapter introduces the concept of a router security policy, covers time-based ACLs, and offers tips for securing a router’s management plane.

Chapter 17: “Routing Protocol Authentication”: This chapter compares various router authentication methods, and then focuses on how to authenticate specific routing protocols, including EIGRP, OSPF, and BGP.

Part VI: “Final Preparation”: This part concludes the book with recommendations for exam preparation.

Chapter 18: “Final Preparation”: This nontechnical chapter identifies and explains how to use various exam preparation tools, followed by a step-by-step strategy for using this book to prepare for the ROUTE exam.

In addition to the core chapters of the book, the book has several appendixes. Some appendixes exist in the printed book, whereas others exist in soft-copy form on the CD included with the book.

Appendixes printed in the book include

Appendix A, “Answers to the ‘Do I Know This Already?’ Quizzes”: Includes the answers to all the questions from Chapters 1 through 17.

Appendix B, “ROUTE Exam Updates”: Covers a variety of short topics that either clarify or expand upon topics covered earlier in the book. This appendix is updated from time to time, and posted at http://kwtrain.com/routebook, with the most recent version available at the time of printing included here as Appendix B. (The first page of the appendix includes instructions on how to check to see whether a later version of Appendix B is available online.)

Appendix C, “Conversion Tables”: Lists a decimal-to-binary conversion table, decimal values 0 through 255, along with the binary equivalents. It also lists a hex-to-decimal conversion table.

The appendixes included on the CD-ROM are

Appendix D, “Memory Tables”: This appendix holds the key tables and lists from each chapter with some of the content removed. You can print this appendix, and as a memory exercise, complete the tables and lists. The goal is to help you memorize facts that can be useful on the exam.

Appendix E, “Memory Tables Answer Key”: This appendix contains the answer key for the exercises in Appendix D.

Appendix F, “Completed Planning Practice Tables”: The ends of Chapters 1 through 17 list planning tables that you can complete to help learn the content more deeply. If you use these tables, refer to this appendix for the suggested answers.

Appendix G, “Study Planner”: A spreadsheet with major study milestones, where you can track your progress through your study.

Glossary: The glossary contains definitions for all the terms listed in the “Define Key Terms” sections at the conclusions of Chapters 1 through 17.

Icons Used in This Book

Command Syntax Conventions

The conventions used to present command syntax in this book are the same conventions used in the IOS Command Reference. The Command Reference describes these conventions as follows:

Boldface indicates commands and keywords that are entered literally as shown. In actual configuration examples and output (not general command syntax), boldface indicates commands that are manually input by the user (such as a show command).

Italics indicate arguments for which you supply actual values.

Vertical bars (|) separate alternative, mutually exclusive elements.

Square brackets ([ ]) indicate an optional element.

Braces ({ }) indicate a required choice.

Braces within brackets ([{ }]) indicate a required choice within an optional element.