350-601 Practice Test 31 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A company is deploying a new storage array with dual controllers. Each controller has two 16 Gbps Fibre Channel ports. The engineer wants to connect each controller to two separate MDS switches for redundancy. What is the recommended port type configuration on the MDS switches for the storage-facing ports?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

F port. A is correct because an F port (Fabric port) is the standard port type on an MDS switch for connecting to an N_port (Node port) on a storage array's Fibre Channel controller. Since each controller has two 16 Gbps FC ports and each connects to a separate MDS switch for redundancy, the switch-facing ports must operate as F ports to establish a point-to-point link with the array's N_ports, enabling fabric services and proper zoning.

Answer

Configure the port as auto to allow negotiation

Answer

NP port

Answer

E port

Question 2

An engineer needs to design a resilient Fibre Channel SAN that eliminates single points of failure between two MDS switches and a storage array with two controllers. What is the minimum number of FC port channels required to achieve this goal?

Accepted Answer

Two. To eliminate single points of failure between two MDS switches and a dual-controller storage array, you need two Fibre Channel port channels. Each port channel connects one MDS switch to both storage controllers, providing redundancy for both the switch and the controller paths. This design ensures that if one switch or one controller fails, the other port channel maintains connectivity.

Answer

Three

Answer

One

Answer

Four

Question 3

An engineer is designing a VXLAN EVPN fabric with multicast-based BUM replication. Which two components are required to support this? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

A multicast group address per VNI. In a VXLAN EVPN fabric using multicast-based BUM replication, each VNI must be mapped to a unique multicast group address in the underlay. This allows the underlay multicast tree to efficiently deliver broadcast, unknown unicast, and multicast traffic to all VTEPs that are members of that VNI, without requiring the ingress VTEP to replicate packets individually.

Answer

NVE interface with multicast group

Answer

BGP EVPN address family

Answer

Ingress replication configured

Question 4

Which THREE of the following are best practices for Fibre Channel zoning on Cisco MDS switches?

Accepted Answer

Make zones as specific as possible, avoiding device inclusion across multiple zones unnecessarily. Options A, B, and D are best practices for Fibre Channel zoning on Cisco MDS switches. A: Making zones as specific as possible reduces unnecessary exposure and simplifies management. B: WWPN-based zoning is preferred over port-based zoning because it allows device mobility without reconfiguration. D: Hard zoning provides hardware-level enforcement via access control lists, offering stronger security than soft zoning. Option C is incorrect because while activating the zone set is necessary, the correct command is 'activate zoneset' not 'zone activate', and it is a procedural step rather than a best practice.

Answer

Always activate the zone set using the 'zone activate' command in configuration mode

Answer

Use soft zoning with name server response filtering

Question 5

Refer to the exhibit. After applying this configuration, the engineer activates the zoneset with 'zoneset activate name ZONESET1 vsan 10'. The host with pwwn 10:00:00:00:c9:aa:bb:01 can communicate with the target with pwwn 10:00:00:00:c9:aa:bb:02. However, the host reports that it cannot see a third target with pwwn 10:00:00:00:c9:aa:bb:03. What is the most likely reason?

Accepted Answer

The third target is not a member of ZONE1.. The host can communicate with the target in ZONE1 (pwwn 10:00:00:00:c9:aa:bb:02) but not with the third target (pwwn 10:00:00:00:c9:aa:bb:03). This indicates that the zoneset activation was successful and the host is in the correct VSAN. The most likely reason is that the third target is not a member of ZONE1; in Fibre Channel zoning, only members of the same zone can communicate, and a device not in the zone will be invisible to other zone members.

Answer

The third target is in a different VSAN.

Answer

The zone name is case-sensitive and does not match.

Answer

The zoneset was not activated successfully.

Question 6

A UCS domain is experiencing intermittent storage connectivity. The storage admin confirms the SAN is properly zoned and the VSANs are configured. The UCS admin finds that the host interface (HBAs) are showing 'Link Down' intermittently. Which of the following is a likely cause?

Accepted Answer

Faulty SFP or cable. Intermittent 'Link Down' on HBAs, despite correct SAN zoning and VSAN configuration, strongly points to a physical-layer issue. Faulty SFPs or damaged cables cause intermittent link flaps, which manifest as sporadic HBA link-down events. This is the most common cause of such symptoms in UCS environments.

Answer

Incompatible HBA firmware

Answer

Mismatched fabric failover policy

Answer

Incorrect Fibre Channel interface mode on the FI

Question 7

In a vPC environment, which two conditions must be identical on both vPC peer switches to ensure proper consistency? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

VLAN configuration on the member ports. In a vPC environment, the VLAN configuration on member ports must be identical on both peer switches to ensure that traffic is forwarded consistently across the vPC. If VLANs are pruned or allowed differently on the member ports, the vPC can become inconsistent, leading to traffic drops or loops. This is a key consistency check enforced by Cisco NX-OS to maintain a stable vPC domain.

Answer

System priority

Answer

Port channel mode (active/passive)

Answer

Peer-keepalive IP address

Question 8

A financial services company is migrating its core banking application to a new data center built on Cisco Nexus 9000 switches with VXLAN EVPN. The application requires active-active multihoming for its servers, which are dual-homed to two leaf switches. The network team has configured vPC on the leaf switches for the server connections. After the migration, the application team reports that some packets are being dropped during failover events when one of the vPC member links goes down. The network team confirms that vPC is properly configured and the peer-keepalive is functioning. What is the most likely cause of packet drops during failure?

Accepted Answer

The vPC consistency parameters are not identical between the peer switches.. In a vPC setup, if the consistency parameters (such as STP, VLAN, or interface configurations) are not identical between the two vPC peer switches, the vPC will not forward traffic correctly during a link failure. This mismatch can cause packet drops during failover events, even though the peer-keepalive is functioning. The Cisco Nexus 9000 series requires strict consistency checks to ensure loop-free and seamless failover in VXLAN EVPN environments.

Answer

The vPC peer-gateway feature is not enabled.

Answer

The vPC orphan port configuration is missing.

Answer

The vPC role is not configured with preempt.

Question 9

Refer to the exhibit. An engineer configured a VXLAN tunnel endpoint (VTEP) but the VXLAN tunnel is not operational. The underlay OSPF adjacency is established. What is the missing configuration?

Accepted Answer

The loopback0 interface is not included in the OSPF process.. The loopback0 interface is not included in the OSPF process. For VXLAN underlay routing, the VTEP source interface (typically loopback0) must be advertised via the underlay IGP (OSPF) so that remote VTEPs can reach it. Without this, the NVE interface cannot form a VXLAN tunnel even though OSPF adjacency is established, as the source IP is unreachable.

Answer

The NVE interface must be enabled with the no shutdown command.

Answer

The multicast group must be reachable via the underlay.

Answer

The VNI must be mapped to a VLAN.

Question 10

A data center administrator is implementing Cisco TrustSec on a Nexus 7000 switch to enforce role-based access control. After configuring a security group tag (SGT) classification policy, users report that traffic between two servers is not being tagged. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The ingress interface is missing the 'sgt' or 'ip policy' command to classify traffic.. Cisco TrustSec requires the ingress interface to be explicitly configured with either the 'sgt' command (for static SGT assignment) or an 'ip policy' command (for dynamic SGT classification via a security group ACL). Without this, the switch cannot classify traffic and apply the SGT tag. The scenario describes a classification policy that is not being applied, which directly points to a missing ingress classification command.

Answer

DHCP snooping is not enabled on the VLAN.

Answer

The switch ASIC does not support TrustSec in hardware.

Answer

The SGT is assigned on the egress interface instead of ingress.

Question 11

An organization uses UCS Central to manage multiple UCS domains. A global service profile policy is created in UCS Central to enforce a common boot policy across all domains. However, one UCS domain needs a different boot order for a specific set of blades. How should the administrator implement this deviation while maintaining centralized manageability?

Accepted Answer

Create a local boot policy in the specific UCS Manager and assign it to the service profiles that need the change.. UCS Central allows global policies, but local policies in each UCS Manager can override them for specific service profiles. The administrator should create a local boot policy in the specific UCS domain and assign it to the service profiles that require the different boot order.

Answer

Exclude the specific UCS domain from the global policy and create a separate global policy for that domain.

Answer

Delete the global boot policy and use only local policies.

Answer

Modify the global boot policy in UCS Central to include all variations.

Question 12

Which protocol is recommended for streaming model-driven telemetry from NX-OS to a collector?

Accepted Answer

gRPC. gRPC (Google Remote Procedure Call) is the recommended protocol for streaming model-driven telemetry from NX-OS to a collector because it provides efficient, bidirectional streaming over HTTP/2, supports structured data encoding (e.g., Protobuf or JSON), and is natively supported in NX-OS for high-frequency, push-based telemetry. Unlike polling-based protocols, gRPC enables the device to continuously stream operational data to the collector with low latency and minimal overhead.

Answer

FTP

Answer

SNMP

Answer

HTTP

Question 13

A large financial institution operates a dual-fabric Fibre Channel SAN with two separate MDS 9710 directors. Each fabric has multiple storage arrays and hundreds of hosts. The SAN is configured with VSANs to isolate different environments (production, development, backup). Recently, the backup VSAN has been experiencing slow performance during backup windows. Analysis shows that the ISLs between the directors in the backup VSAN are heavily utilized (near 100%) while other ISLs have spare capacity. The backup traffic consists of large sequential reads and writes. The SAN administrator has confirmed that there are no CRC errors or link issues. The backup VSAN uses a single 16 Gbps ISL. Which of the following is the best solution to improve backup performance?

Accepted Answer

Add an additional 16 Gbps ISL and configure a port channel for the backup VSAN.. Adding an additional 16 Gbps ISL and configuring a port channel for the backup VSAN increases the available bandwidth for backup traffic, which consists of large sequential reads and writes that can fully utilize the link. Port channels provide load balancing across member links based on source/destination IDs, effectively distributing the backup traffic and reducing congestion on the single ISL. This directly addresses the near-100% utilization without introducing complexity or relying on other fabrics.

Answer

Reduce the buffer credit count on the backup VSAN ISLs to reduce latency.

Answer

Enable QoS to prioritize backup traffic over other traffic.

Answer

Implement IVR to route backup traffic through the other fabric.

Question 14

A storage network using Cisco MDS 9700 switches has two VSANs (100 and 200). The engineer wants to share a physical ISL between both VSANs while maintaining traffic isolation. Which feature should be used?

Accepted Answer

VSAN trunking. VSAN trunking allows a single physical ISL to carry traffic for multiple VSANs by adding a VSAN tag to each frame, ensuring traffic isolation between VSANs 100 and 200. This is the native Cisco MDS feature designed for sharing inter-switch links across VSANs without merging their control planes or forwarding tables.

Answer

PortChannel with trunk mode on

Answer

Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR)

Answer

FSPF metric manipulation

Question 15

A Cisco MDS switch is configured for NPV mode. An upstream NPIV-enabled switch is connected. The administrator notices that the NPV switch is not logging in to the NPIV switch. The NPV switch shows the following: 'show npv status' indicates NPV is enabled but no traffic. Which three conditions could cause this issue?

Accepted Answer

The uplink interface on the NPV switch is not configured as an NP port.. In NPV mode, the uplink interface on the NPV switch must be explicitly configured as an NP port (np). If the interface is left as a default F port or another port type, it cannot establish a connection to the upstream NPIV-enabled switch. The 'show npv status' output showing NPV enabled but no traffic indicates that the NPV switch is operational but the uplink is not properly configured to initiate the FLOGIN process.

Answer

FSPF is not enabled on the NPV switch.

Answer

The NPV switch does not have the proper license for NPV mode.