Cisco Certifications

CCIE Data Center Exam, Revision 3.1

Blueprint Revisions

Products and technologies are evolving faster than ever before. To keep up with the fast pace, we are introducing a
new agile process that will allow us to align our exams faster with these changes: minor revisions. Minor revisions
will provide us with the agility and speed that are necessary to adjust our programs to match industry changes and
the evolution of technologies. Minor revisions will allow us to update track details (exam blueprint, equipment list,
and software) more frequently while keeping overall changes to a minimum (smaller than 20%). These revisions
allow us to ensure our content stays relevant, and they minimize learning curves in between revisions.

The main objective of a minor revision is to:

• Further scope out the exam blueprint by ensuring exam objectives are clear.
• Introduce new blueprint tasks to ensure exams stay relevant today.
• Phase out old(er) products and/or technology solutions that are less relevant today.
• Update equipment and/or software.

Today we are revising the CCIE Data Center exam.

CCIE Data Center exam, minor revision 3.1

The CCIE Data Center exam is going through a minor revision (changes are small and incremental). Although the
overall domains within the exam blueprint might look similar at first look, with this minor revision we both added
and removed technology solutions to ensure exam relevancy.

Refer to https://learningnetwork.cisco.com for the list of exam topics covered in the updated CCIE Data Center
exam and for more information about the CCIE certification program.

Cisco and Cisco logo are trademarks or registered of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries.
To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
Cisco © and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 1
 Cisco Certifications

CCIE Data Center Exam, Revision 3.1

Exam Topics Changes - Highlights CCIE/CCNP/CCNA ET v1.1

V3.0 V3.1
1. Data Center L2/L3 Connectivity (20%) 1. Data Center L2/L3 Connectivity (20%)
1.2 Routing Protocols and features 1.2 Routing protocols and features
1.2.c BGP 1.2.c BGP
1.2.c.i Path Selection 1.2.c.i Path selection
1.2.c.ii External and Internal Peering 1.2.c.ii External and internal peering
1.2.c.iii Route reflector and Route 1.2.c.iii Route reflector and route server
Server 1.2.c.iv Peer templates
1.2.c.iv Peer Templates 1.2.c.v Multihop EBGP
1.2.c.v Multi-Hop EBGP 1.2.c.vi Route
1.2.c.vi Route aggregation/summarization
Aggregation/Summarization 1.2.c.vii Route redistribution
1.2.c.vii Route Redistribution 1.2.c.viii Local AS number

2. Data Center Fabric Infrastructure (15%) 2. Data Center Fabric Infrastructure (15%)
2.1. Physical fabric components 2.1. Physical fabric components
2.1.a Fabric Discovery 2.1.a Fabric discovery
2.1.b Controllers/Network Managers 2.1.b Controllers
2.1.c Switches 2.1.c Switches
2.2. Fabric policies 2.1.d Multi-Tier architecture
2.2.a Access Policies 2.2. ACI policies
2.2.b Multi Tenancy 2.2.a Access policies
2.2.c Monitoring Policies 2.2.b Fabric policies
2.3. Tenant Policies 2.2.c Multi-tenancy
2.3.a Application profiles and EPGs 2.3. Overlay policies
2.3.b Networking 2.3.a Tenants, application profiles, EPGs,
2.3.c Security and ESGs
2.4. Fabric Monitoring 2.3.b Networking (VRFs, bridge domains)
2.4.a Faults 2.3.c Security (contracts, filters, vzAny)
2.4.b Events 2.4. Fabric monitoring
2.4.c Health indicators 2.4.a Faults
2.4.d Audit Logs 2.4.b Events
2.5. Virtual Networking 2.4.c Health indicators
2.5.a vSphere VDS 2.4.d Audit logs
2.5. Virtual networking

Cisco and Cisco logo are trademarks or registered of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries.
To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
Cisco © and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 2
 Cisco Certifications

CCIE Data Center Exam, Revision 3.1

2.5.a vSphere VDS with or without VMM
integration
3. Data Center Fabric Connectivity (15%) 3. Data Center Fabric Connectivity (15%)
3.1. VRF lite 3.1. Overlay fabrics
3.2. L3Out 3.1.a ACI
3.2.a. OSPF 3.1.b VXLAN EVPN
3.2.a.i Authentication 3.2. External connectivity
3.2.a.ii Adjacencies 3.2.a VRF Lite
3.2.a.iii Network Types and Area 3.2.b OSPF
Types 3.2.b.i Authentication
3.2.a.iv Route Redistribution 3.2.b.ii Adjacencies
3.2.b. BGP 3.2.b.iii Network types and area types
3.2.b.i AS Manipulation 3.2.b.iv Route redistribution
3.2.b.ii External and Interna Peering 3.2.c. BGP
3.2.b.iii Route Reflectors 3.2.c.i AS manipulation
3.2.b.iv Route Redistribution 3.2.c.ii External and internal peering
3.2.c. Transit Routing 3.2.c.iii Route reflectors
3.3. Inter Fabric connectivity 3.2.c.iv Route redistribution
3.3.a Multi-Pod 3.2.d. Transit routing
3.3.b Multi-Site 3.3. Inter-fabric connectivity
3.3.c Virtual POD 3.3.a. Multi-Site: ACI or VXLAN EVPN
3.3.d remote Leaf 3.3.b. ACI Multi-Pod
3.4. Overlays 3.3.c. ACI remote leaf
3.4.a VXLAN EVPN
4. Data Center Compute (15%) 4. Data Center Compute (15%)
4.1. Compute Resources 4.1. Compute resources
4.1.a UCSM Policies, Profiles and 4.1.a Compute policies, profiles and
Templates templates
4.1.b Hyperflex 4.1.b Nutanix
4.2. Compute Connectivity 4.2. Compute connectivity
4.2.a SAN/LAN uplinks 4.2.a SAN/LAN uplinks
4.2.b Rack server integrations 4.2.b Rack server integrations
4.2.c Port Modes 4.2.c Port modes
4.3. Compute management
4.3.a UCS Manager
4.3.b Intersight
5. Data Center Storage Protocols and Features (10%) 5. Data Center Storage Protocols and Features (10%)
5.1. FC and FCoE 5.1. FC and FCoE
5.1.a Zoning 5.1.a Zoning
5.1.b NPV/NPIV 5.1.b NPV/NPIV
5.1.c Trunking 5.1.c Trunking

Cisco and Cisco logo are trademarks or registered of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries.
To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
Cisco © and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 3
 Cisco Certifications

CCIE Data Center Exam, Revision 3.1

5.1.d Portchannel 5.1.d PortChannel
5.1.e Load Balancing 5.1.e Load balancing
5.2. iSCSI 5.2. RoCE v2 over IP networks
5.2.a Authentication 5.2.a DCQCN congestion control
5.2.b Multipathing 5.2.a.i PFC
5.3. RoCE v2 over IP Networks 5.2.a.ii ECN
6. Data Center Security and Network Services 6. Data Center Security and Network Services (10%)
(10%)
6.4 Services 6.4 Services
6.4.a Flow/Telemetry Export 6.4.a Flow/telemetry export
6.4.b SPAN 6.4.b (R)SPAN/ERSPAN
6.4.c SNMP 6.4.c SNMP
6.4.d Syslog 6.4.d Syslog
6.4.e DHCP 6.4.e DHCP
6.4.f NTP/PTP 6.4.f NTP/PTP
7. Data Center Automation and Orchestration 7. Data Center Automation and Orchestration
(15%) (15%)
7.1. Data center tasks using scripts (Python and 7.1. Data center tasks using scripts (Python, Ansible,
Ansible) and Terraform)
7.1.a Create, Read, Update, Delete using 7.1.a Create, read, update, delete using
RESTful APIs RESTful APIs
7.1.b Deploy and modify configurations 7.1.b Deploy and modify configurations
7.1.c Statistics, Data Collection 7.1.c Statistics and data collection
7.2. Data Center Automation and Orchestration 7.2. Data center automation and orchestration
using tools tools
7.2.a DCNM 7.2.a Nexus Dashboard
7.2.b UCSD 7.2.a.i Orchestrator
7.2.b.i Tasks 7.2.a.ii Fabric Controller
7.2.b.ii Workflows 7.2.a.iii Insights
7.2.b.iii Catalog 7.2.b Cloud Network Controller
7.2.c Intersight
7.2.d CloudCenter Suite
7.2.d.i Applications
7.2.d.ii Deployments
7.2.d.iii Action Orchest

Compared to v3.0, the new v3.1 revision maintains the current seven main domain names and domain weightings.
However, changes have been introduced in all seven domains of the blueprint, paying special focus to core
essential topics that are more relevant in the industry today and providing additional context to better understand
the scope of each individual task.

Cisco and Cisco logo are trademarks or registered of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries.
To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
Cisco © and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 4
 Cisco Certifications

CCIE Data Center Exam, Revision 3.1

1. Data Center L2/L3 Connectivity
In task 1.2.c, the following topic was added:
• Local-AS number

2. Data Center Fabric Infrastructure

In task 2.1, the following topic was added:
• Multi-tier architecture

Task 2.2 was renamed to ACI policies. In this task following changes have been made:
• The Monitoring Policies topic was removed as it is included in Access and Fabric policies topics.
• The Fabric polices topic was added.

Task 2.3 was renamed to Overlay policies. All topics have been refined with the names of policies that fit into each
given topic. The following functionalities were added:
• Endpoint Security Groups (ESGs)
• vzAny

3. Data Center Fabric Connectivity

The entire section had been restructured to align with: ACI and VXLAN EVPN fabrics. This is why:
• The entire task 3.1, along with its subsequent topics was added.
• Task 3.2 was renamed to be applicable to both fabrics.
• The previous 3.1 topic was moved as a subtask in 3.2.
• In task 3.3:
o Virtual POD was removed as the solution is no longer developed.
o Multi-site was refined to apply to: ACI and VXLAN EVPN fabrics.
• Task 3.4 was removed.

4. Data Center Compute

The following changes have occurred in this section:
• Task 4.1.a has been generalized to be applicable to: UCS Manager and Intersight.
• Previous task 4.1.b, which focused on Hyperflex, has been replaced with the new compute hyperconverged
solution Nutanix. The Hyperflex solution itself is no longer developed.
• Topic 4.3 was added to indicate two management solutions belonging to this domain.

5. Data Center Storage Protocols and Features

In this section, it was decided to remove the iSCSI-related tasks. Instead, topics related to ROCEv2 have been
expanded to address the growing popularity of AI/ML clusters.

6. Data Center Security and Network Services

In this task there are no major changes except for the specification of task 6.4.b.

Cisco and Cisco logo are trademarks or registered of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries.
To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
Cisco © and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 5
 Cisco Certifications

CCIE Data Center Exam, Revision 3.1

7. Data Center Automation and Orchestration
This entire section underwent a comprehensive overhaul, including the following changes:
• Adding Terraform to task 7.1
• Adding Nexus Dashboard with Orchestrator, Fabric Controller, and Insights services
• Adding Cloud Network Controller (formerly Cloud ACI / APIC)
• Removing DCNM (rebranded to NDFC)
• Removing UCSD and related subtasks (solution no longer developed)
• Removing CloudCenter Suite and related subtasks (solution no longer developed)
• Transferring the previous 7.2.c subtask to section 4

Hardware and Software Equipment

In support of the updated CCIE Data Center revision 3.1 the lab exam environment changes were made to the
equipment and software releases used. However, as per minor revision guidelines, no additions to the hardware
list have been introduced. Candidates who want to prepare for the exam are now advised to use the updated Cisco
equipment and software releases.

The following equipment has been removed from the lab exam:
• Nexus 2348 Fabric Extender
• Cisco HyperFlex HX220c M5

The following changes have been made to the software list:

• Added Nexus Dashboard 3.x with the following services:
o Orchestrator v4.x
o Fabric Controller v12.x
o Insights 6.x
• Updated Cisco NX-OS to v10.x on Nexus 9000 switches
• Updated Cisco ACI version to v5.x
• Removed Cisco Data Center Network Manager (replaced with NDFC)
• Removed Cisco UCS Director
• Removed Cisco Hyperflex
• Removed ACI Multi-site (replaced with NDO)

Exam format
No changes have been made to the lab exam format in this minor revision.

Cisco and Cisco logo are trademarks or registered of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries.
To view a list of Cisco trademarks, go to this URL: http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
Cisco © and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 6