350-601 Automation Practice Test 5 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A data center team is implementing configuration automation for a fleet of Nexus 9000 switches. They need a solution that supports idempotent configuration, works well with version control, and does not require an agent on the switches. Which two tools should they consider?

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

Accepted Answer

Ansible. C is correct because Ansible is an agentless automation tool that uses SSH to push declarative configurations to Nexus 9000 switches. It supports idempotent playbooks, meaning the same playbook can be run multiple times without changing the state if the desired configuration is already in place, and its YAML-based playbooks integrate seamlessly with version control systems like Git.

Answer

Puppet

Answer

Chef

Answer

Python with Paramiko

Question 2

Refer to the exhibit. An engineer is using an Ansible playbook to configure a Nexus switch. The playbook task uses the nxos_config module to set an MTU value on an interface. What is the most likely issue?

Accepted Answer

Use the nxos_mtu module instead of nxos_config to configure MTU.. The nxos_config module is a generic module for applying arbitrary configuration commands, but it does not validate or handle the specific semantics of MTU configuration. The nxos_mtu module is purpose-built to manage MTU settings on Nexus interfaces, ensuring correct syntax and idempotent behavior. Therefore, using nxos_mtu is the appropriate approach for this task.

Answer

Add the 'provider' parameter with connection details.

Answer

Correct the spelling of the MTU parameter to 'mtu_size'.

Answer

Verify that the switch supports MTU configuration via Ansible.

Question 3

A large financial institution has recently migrated its data center network to a new Cisco ACI fabric. The operations team is tasked with automating the provisioning of new application tenants, including EPGs, contracts, and bridge domains, using the APIC REST API. They have developed a comprehensive set of Python scripts that successfully performed these actions in their lab environment. However, when deploying the scripts to production, they receive an 'SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED' error from the requests library. The production APIC cluster uses a self-signed certificate for HTTPS, and the corporate security policy strictly prohibits the use of HTTP or disabling certificate verification. Additionally, the policy does not allow replacing the self-signed certificate with a CA-signed one without a lengthy approval process that could delay the automation project. The team needs an immediate solution that maintains security best practices. What should the team do?

Accepted Answer

Add the self-signed certificate to the Python trust store by using the cert file in the verify parameter.. The Python requests library allows you to pass a self-signed certificate file via the `verify` parameter, which adds that certificate to the trusted store for that session. This satisfies the security policy by maintaining HTTPS encryption and certificate verification without disabling SSL checks or requiring a CA-signed certificate. The team can export the APIC's self-signed certificate (e.g., from the APIC GUI or CLI) and use it in their scripts as `requests.get(url, verify='/path/to/cert.pem')`.

Answer

Use HTTP instead of HTTPS for the API calls.

Answer

Disable SSL certificate verification in the Python requests by setting verify=False.

Answer

Request an exception to the security policy to allow a CA-signed certificate.

Question 4

An engineer wants to automate the creation of VLANs on a Nexus 9000 switch using Python scripts. Which on-box solution allows running Python scripts directly on the switch without an external server?

Accepted Answer

Guest shell. Guest shell provides a secure Linux environment on Nexus switches to run Python scripts and tools.

Answer

Terraform provider

Answer

APIC REST API

Answer

Ansible control node

Question 5

Which protocol is used by NETCONF to transport YANG-defined configuration data between a controller and a network device?

Accepted Answer

XML over SSH. NETCONF uses XML over SSH (RFC 6241) for secure transport.

Answer

XML over HTTP

Answer

CLI over Telnet

Answer

JSON over HTTPS

Question 6

An organization adopts Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for network automation. Which tool is commonly used to manage ACI fabric configuration declaratively?

Accepted Answer

Terraform. Terraform with the terraform-provider-aci allows declarative management of ACI objects.

Answer

Python acitoolkit

Answer

NX-API CLI

Answer

Ansible

Question 7

A network engineer needs to automate the configuration of BGP on a Nexus switch using Ansible. Which Ansible module from the cisco.nxos collection is appropriate for managing BGP configuration?

Accepted Answer

nxos_bgp. The nxos_bgp module is specifically designed to manage BGP settings on NX-OS devices.

Answer

nxos_vlan

Answer

nxos_config

Answer

nxos_interface

Question 8

A DevOps team wants to version control network device configurations. Which tool is best suited for tracking changes and collaborating on configuration files?

Accepted Answer

Git. Git is the industry standard for version control, enabling history, branching, and collaboration.

Answer

Python virtual environment

Answer

Ansible Tower

Answer

Cisco Prime Infrastructure

Question 9

An engineer is writing a Python script to interact with a Nexus 9000 switch using the NX-API REST interface. Which Python library is designed for this purpose?

Accepted Answer

cisco_nxapi. The cisco_nxapi library provides methods to call NX-API REST endpoints from Python.

Answer

ncclient

Answer

requests

Answer

acitoolkit

Question 10

Which API uses RESTful principles and supports both XML and JSON encoding for network configuration, as defined in RFC 8040?

Accepted Answer

RESTCONF. RESTCONF (RFC 8040) is a REST-based protocol using HTTP methods and supports XML/JSON.

Answer

OpenConfig

Answer

NETCONF

Answer

NX-API CLI

Question 11

An engineer needs to trigger a Python script on a Nexus switch when a specific syslog message appears. Which Cisco technology allows event-driven execution of Python applets?

Accepted Answer

EEM. EEM (Embedded Event Manager) with Python applets can monitor syslog events and run scripts.

Answer

Guest shell

Answer

OnEX

Answer

Ansible

Question 12

In ACI, the management information tree (MIT) organizes managed objects hierarchically. Which object is the parent of an Application Profile (AP)?

Accepted Answer

Tenant. In the MIT, a Tenant contains Application Profiles.

Answer

fvBD

Answer

EPG

Answer

Infra

Question 13

A data center team is automating network changes and wants to ensure that only validated configurations are deployed to production. Which CI/CD practice specifically addresses this?

Accepted Answer

Automated testing. Automated testing (e.g., unit tests, integration tests) in the CI/CD pipeline validates changes before deployment.

Answer

Infrastructure as Code

Answer

Continuous deployment

Answer

Version control

Question 14

Which of the following is a YANG data model developed by the OpenConfig working group to provide vendor-neutral configuration for network interfaces?

Accepted Answer

openconfig-interfaces. OpenConfig defines standard YANG models for various network functions, including interfaces.

Answer

ietf-interfaces

Answer

nacm

Answer

Cisco-NX-OS-device

Question 15

An engineer uses the APIC REST API to create a new EPG. The API endpoint for creating an EPG under a specific tenant and application profile uses which object class?

Accepted Answer

fvAEPg. The EPG object class in the ACI MIT is 'fvAEPg' (Application Endpoint Group).

Answer

fvBD

Answer

fvTenant

Answer

fvAp