CCNP SPCOR 350-501: MPLS, BGP, IS-IS & QoS

Learn about Cisco certification updates since February 2020 and how Cisco devices such as switches, routers, firewalls, and wireless systems shape the certification tracks for implementing these technologies.

Cisco updates, effective February 24, 2020, consolidate CCNA, CCNP, and CCI, remove CCNA specializations and certifications, introduce single CCNA exam and core and concentration exams, plus DevNet Associate for automation.

all certifications, including CCNA, CCNP, and CCI, now have a three-year validity, replacing the former two-year limit for CCI and eliminating the deactivation sleep mode.

Explore CCNP professional level tracks, including enterprise, data center, security, wireless modules, and service border, with core papers and specialized wireless papers guiding expert level certification.

Explore ccie certifications across six tracks, including enterprise infrastructure and wireless, with encore as a prerequisite and enterprise wide and wireless courses, plus security, data center, and collaboration prerequisites.

Explore Cisco certification migrations, using the migration tool to map old CCNP and specialist tracks to new enterprise and security certifications, with three-year validity and recertification requirements.

Learn the updated CCNP service provider exam structure, including core foundation exam and concentration tracks, with automation, SD-WAN, wireless, and enterprise design focus.

Review lab options for CCNP service provider SPCOR-350-501, from physical dedicated setups to simulation and virtualization tools. Assess cost, resources, and coverage of basic to advanced routing and switching labs.

Explore supported Cisco virtual images for GNS3 and EVE-NG, including L2 and L3 images, platform nuances, and how to upload and simulate devices for labs.

Explore GNS3 as a practical industry simulation tool that replaces real labs with virtual images of Cisco IOS and other devices, enabling scalable, hardware-free lab work.

Install GNS3 on Windows by downloading the Windows version from the Dynasty website and following the installer. Meet requirements such as Windows 7 or later, virtualization, and 4–8 gb ram.

Learn how to add IOS images in GNS3 using the setup wizard. Copy images from your computer, download Cisco images, and configure platform slots and memory to simulate routers.

Explore the default topology for IOS routers and configure initial setups, including creating logical loopback interfaces to simulate multiple subnets, testing routing, filtering, and basic connectivity.

Configure and save an IOS default topology by dragging and dropping images, wiring cables, and applying initial configs, then verify via the console and load the saved topology later.

Connect a GNS3 topology to a Windows host using a Microsoft loopback adapter or VM interfaces, configure the cloud, assign IPs, and verify reachability, troubleshooting firewall as needed.

Configure the GNS3 VM with VMware to run virtual images, ensuring version compatibility, proper host bindings, and subnet-aligned IP settings for seamless integration.

Explore GNS3 IOSv L2-L3 configuration by importing appliance and image files, integrating with a VM, and dragging images to iris devices to simulate layer 2 and layer 3 networks.

Set up the ASAv firewall in GNS3 by downloading the appliance file and ASA images, importing the appliance, selecting the version, and powering on the VM for operation.

Learn to use GNS3 with IOU images to simulate L2-L3 switching, configure a license file, add images, and drag devices into a Cisco lab-style setup.

Set up the EVE-NG virtual platform by downloading the VM, importing it, allocating resources, and booting to build labs with routers, switches, and supported images.

Choose between the free community edition and the eve-ng professional license, download and install the images in a vm, and complete the license purchase and activation steps.

Upload iol images into eve-ng by placing them in the correct local folders (opd, lab, add ons, bin), then verify licensing and permissions.

Upload SD-WAN images to EVE-NG by connecting to the host, logging in with credentials, and copying exact-named image folders from the local drive into EVE-NG lab, ensuring license compatibility.

Configure a Viptela eve-ng lab by uploading preconfigured images, renaming folders, and fixing permissions to add vmanage devices and begin command-line configurations.

Learn how to upload and organize asa images in eve-ng, copy and rename files with FileZilla, then boot asa nodes and access the command-line interface via the security id.

Upload iso or preconfigured images to eve-ng, boot Windows client or server, and use vnc to configure ram, interfaces, and services like Active Directory and dns.

Learn to run ASA 8.4 images in EVE-NG, upload both older and A7 Gen S3 images, and onboard via ACP for lab interoperability, and understand image compatibility limits.

Connect a windows server to the eve topology to enable vmanage login and certificate authority for controller and village authentication, using three interfaces and ip addressing.

Learn to connect a Windows server to the internet by adding a management cloud interface, obtaining a DHCP IP from the local subnet, and enabling remote desktop and browser access.

Learn to configure CSR1000v on eve-ng as a one-edge device using Iris XY, upload the seesaw image, and build a two-device topology for CCNP service provider SPCOR-350-501.

Explore the CCNP service provider path with core and concentration exams, covering routing, vpn services, and automation, plus prerequisites and exam order for scalable, secure networks.

Explore the CCNP core paper as a foundation for service technologies and routing concepts, including OSPF, BGP, MPLS, in a dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 environment and QoS considerations.

Explore core service provider routing and MPLS concepts, including OSPF/ISIS/BGP for dual-stack IPv4/IPv6, MPLS with LDP, VPNs, multicast (PIM/IGMP), and high-availability.

Explore MPLS traffic engineering, segment routing, and unified MPLS architectures while assessing VPN options, QoS models, and security options across BGP, LDP, and DDoS.

Explore routing as forwarding packets between networks, comparing static, default, and dynamic routing, and learn how routing tables choose the best path.

Static routing is manually configured by the administrator to select a single best route to a destination network ID, using its subnet mask.

Configure static routing between two routers using ip route for 192.168.2.0/24 and 192.168.1.0/24 with next hops 10.0.0.2 and 10.0.0.1, and verify with show ip route, ping, and traceroute.

Explore configuring static routing across three routers, defining multiple static routes with correct next-hop addresses, and verifying connectivity via ping and tracert to understand scalability drawbacks.

explains configuring default routing to reach the internet and end locations, using a single default route 0.0.0.0/0 to forward unknown destinations to the ISP (2.2.2.2).

Explore how default routing works across a three-router network: configure a single default route on the edge routers, compare with static routes on the middle router, and verify inter-network reachability.

Understand how routing lookups occur across multiple routers, verify routing tables and next hops for static routing, and troubleshoot by confirming correct default gateways and interface reachability.

Explore how routers install routes into the routing table by validating a reachable next hop, applying longest prefix match, and resolving ties with administrative distance, metric, and load balancing.

Explore static and default routing basics, including floating static and floating default routes, and verify configurations on the command line interface using direct next hop and exit interface methods.

Configure static routes across routers, implement floating static routes with different administrative distances for redundancy, and employ default routing to forward unknown destinations via primary and backup links.

Identify prerequisite knowledge for routing topics, including connectivity, IP addressing, and interface status checks with show ip interface brief, plus static and dynamic routing concepts like OSPF and ISIS.

Explain how OSPF, a link-state and classless routing protocol, uses the shortest path first algorithm to determine the best routes, supports unlimited hops, bandwidth-based metrics, and load balancing.

This lecture explains how OSPF works in three phases: establishing neighbor relationships with hellos, exchanging link state databases via LSAs, and selecting the best route to forward traffic.

Explains how OSPF neighbors form through hello exchanges, from down to two-way, using multicast hello on 224.0.0.5 and 224.0.0.6, with unicast replies and show ip ospf neighbor.

Configure OSPF router ID as a unique 32-bit ID; if not set, use highest loopback IP or highest physical IP, and the ID must be unique in the OSPF domain.

Discover how OSPF builds a shared link state database (LSDB) via neighbor exchanges and LSAs flooding, ensuring all routers maintain identical topology information.

In the exchange start stage, routers decide who starts first by router ID, designate master and slave, and exchange a summary of their link-state advertisements (lsas).

Discover how OSPF synchronizes the LSDB across routers by exchanging LSAs and requesting missing entries, then uses the shortest path first algorithm to determine the best route.

Explore how OSPF maintains neighbor relationships through hello messages every 10 seconds, with a 40-second aging, driving convergence and using incremental and periodic updates for LSAs.

Explore how OSPF builds and maintains neighbor and link-state databases, advertises LSAs, and computes the best routes in the routing table using metrics.

Configure OSPF with a process id to run multiple instances on a single router, advertise networks by network ID and wildcard, as shown in provider edge lab scenarios.

Explore how OSPF uses wildcard masks to define which addresses to advertise, and learn how to derive wildcard masks from subnet masks and apply them to match networks.

ensure connectivity between three preconfigured routers in a packet tracer topology, with IP networks 192.168.1.x, 192.168.2.x, and 192.168.3.x, and interfaces up, to prepare for OSPF single area configuration.

Learn how to configure OSPF on routers with two interfaces, advertise networks like 192.168.1.0/24 and 10.0.0.0/8, and form neighbor relationships in a single area, with verification commands.

Verify OSPF single-area neighborship, router IDs, and routing details with show ip ospf neighbor, show ip protocols, show ip ospf database, and show ip route ospf.

Explore how OSPF advertisements match interfaces in a topology using wildcard masks like 10.1.0 with 000255 and 10.0 with 0.255, illustrating specific versus broad interface inclusion.

OSPF builds a link-state database from LSAs, computes the best (lowest-cost) route by summing path costs, and installs it into the routing table; verify with show ip route.

This lecture explains OSPF cost derivation from interface bandwidth, using the default reference bandwidth and the ten to the power of eight formula, with cost becoming one for fast ethernet.

Understand how OSPF derives costs from interface bandwidth and how default costs appear on gigabit links, and verify with show ip ospf interface brief to ensure accurate routing.

Explore the limitations of default reference bandwidth, showing how 100 Mbps and above all cost one, reducing differentiation between 100 Mbps and 10 gig links when selecting the best routes.

Configure manual cost on OSPF interfaces to influence the best path, overriding the default cost based on bandwidth; verify with show commands and observe route changes.

Adjust the OSPF auto-cost reference bandwidth to scale costs with link speeds, using 100 gig, 40 gig, or 10 gig values, and verify with show ip ospf interface brief.

Explain how single-area OSPF struggles with large networks due to high CPU and memory usage, and slow convergence, and introduce dividing the topology into multiple areas to optimize scalability.

Examine how OSPF uses multiple areas to logically group routers, limit link-state databases, restrict LSAs within each area, and accelerate convergence in large networks.

Master OSPF design rules for multiple areas: area zero as backbone, non-backbone areas connect to it, at least one border router, and ensure facing interfaces are in the same area.

Configure multi-area ospf by defining the process id, advertising networks with wildcard masks, and assigning interfaces to areas, including area zero backbone and border routers linking to area ten.

Configure a three-router OSPF lab across multiple areas, placing area zero, area ten, and area 20, using a border router to connect them and verify with show commands.

This lecture demonstrates OSPFv2 interface advertisements using interface subcommands, enabling OSPF on specific interfaces in an area and automatically advertising their networks, without network statements.