350-501 Practice Exam 3 — 20 Questions

Question 1

Based on the exhibit, what is the purpose of the 'mpls ldp neighbor ... password cisco' commands?

Accepted Answer

To authenticate the LDP session using MD5.. The 'mpls ldp neighbor ... password cisco' command configures a Message Digest 5 (MD5) authentication password for the LDP session with a specific neighbor. This ensures that the TCP connection used for LDP exchanges is authenticated, preventing spoofed or unauthorized LDP messages from being accepted, as defined in RFC 5036.

Answer

To synchronize LDP and IGP convergence.

Answer

To control the label allocation for prefixes from that neighbor.

Answer

To enable LDP session protection for the neighbor.

Question 2

Based on the exhibit, why is the route 10.10.10.0/24 from remote PE not installed in the VRF Customer-A on PE1?

Accepted Answer

The VRF imports route-target 200:200, but the route has RT 100:100. The route has RT 100:100, but VRF Customer-A imports RT 200:200. Thus, the route is not imported. Option A is wrong because the localpref is 100, which is default and not an issue. Option C is wrong because the RD mismatch is between VRFs, but RD does not affect import; RT does. Option D is wrong because label allocation is working fine (vpn-label:24000).

Answer

The localpref is too low (100)

Answer

The MPLS label allocation failed on the remote PE

Answer

The route distinguisher on the VRF (100:1) does not match the remote RD

Question 3

Which TWO of the following are characteristics of MPLS-TE (Traffic Engineering)?

Accepted Answer

Uses explicit paths to route traffic away from shortest-path IGP.. MPLS-TE uses explicit paths (either strict or loose) to direct traffic away from the shortest path determined by the IGP (e.g., OSPF or IS-IS). This allows network operators to engineer traffic flows based on administrative policies, such as load balancing or avoiding congested links, rather than relying solely on the IGP's metric-based shortest path.

Answer

Uses LDP for label distribution along the TE tunnel.

Answer

Requires per-platform label space for TE tunnels.

Answer

Requires all routers in the TE tunnel to be in the same OSPF area.

Question 4

Match each BGP attribute to its category or purpose.

Accepted Answer

Local Preference: Well-known discretionary attribute used for outbound traffic influence. Correct matches associate BGP attributes with their standard categories and purposes. Local Preference and Next Hop are well-known discretionary and mandatory respectively, while MED is optional nontransitive. Common confusions include misclassifying attribute categories or purposes.

Answer

Local Preference: Optional transitive attribute used to tag routes

Answer

AS Path: Optional nontransitive attribute used for inbound traffic influence

Question 5

Drag and drop the steps to configure a static route on a Cisco IOS router into the correct order.

Accepted Answer

1. Enter global configuration mode (configure terminal)
2. Configure the static route using the ip route command with destination network, subnet mask, and next-hop address or exit interface
3. Verify the configuration (e.g., show ip route)
4. Exit configuration mode (end or exit). Static routes require global config mode and must specify the destination network, subnet mask, and next-hop address or exit interface.

Answer

1. Enter global configuration mode (configure terminal)
2. Verify the configuration (e.g., show ip route)
3. Configure the static route using the ip route command
4. Exit configuration mode (end or exit)

Answer

1. Configure the static route using the ip route command
2. Enter global configuration mode (configure terminal)
3. Verify the configuration (e.g., show ip route)
4. Exit configuration mode (end or exit)

Answer

1. Exit configuration mode (end or exit)
2. Enter global configuration mode (configure terminal)
3. Configure the static route using the ip route command
4. Verify the configuration (e.g., show ip route)

Question 6

A service provider is migrating from LDP to Segment Routing. What is the correct order of operations to ensure uninterrupted MPLS forwarding?

Accepted Answer

Enable SR on each router one by one while LDP remains active, then remove LDP after SR is stable.. It follows the recommended migration strategy of running LDP and Segment Routing (SR) in parallel. By enabling SR on each router one by one while LDP remains active, MPLS forwarding continues uninterrupted via LDP until SR is fully deployed and stable. Once SR is verified on all routers, LDP can be safely removed without causing any forwarding black holes.

Answer

Enable SR on all routers simultaneously.

Answer

Configure IS-IS SR extensions on all routers, then disable LDP.

Answer

Disable LDP first to free labels, then enable SR.

Question 7

A large service provider operates an MPLS L3VPN network with multiple Route Reflectors (RRs) in the core. The network uses BGP as the control plane for both IPv4 unicast and VPNv4 routes. Recently, one of the RRs started flapping, causing route withdrawals to many clients. The network architect wants to improve stability. The RRs are fully meshed with each other and clients are configured as route-reflector clients. The RRs have both IPv4 and VPNv4 address families enabled. Which action should be taken to minimize the impact of an RR failure?

Accepted Answer

Configure client-to-client reflection on the RRs and ensure that each PE is a client of at least two RRs.. Configuring client-to-client reflection on the RRs and ensuring each PE is a client of at least two RRs provides redundancy; if one RR fails, routes are still available via the other RR. BGP PIC helps fast failover but does not prevent route withdrawal impact; add-paths increases paths but not redundancy; same cluster ID reduces redundancy.

Answer

Configure BGP prefix-independent convergence (PIC) on all PE routers.

Answer

Implement BGP add-paths capability on RRs to advertise multiple paths to clients.

Answer

Deploy redundant RRs with the same cluster ID and use the 'bgp cluster-id' command to ensure clients only accept routes from one RR at a time.

Question 8

An SP router is configured with a hierarchical QoS policy (parent policy shaper, child policy with CBWFQ). When applying this policy to an interface, the router reports 'Policy map not found' error. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The child policy-map specified in the parent's 'service-policy' command does not exist.. The 'Policy map not found' error occurs when the parent policy-map references a child policy-map via the 'service-policy' command, but that child policy-map does not exist in the router's configuration. Hierarchical QoS requires both the parent and child policy-maps to be created and correctly named; a missing child policy-map prevents the router from applying the nested policy.

Answer

The interface speed is not configured.

Answer

The interface is not part of a bridge domain.

Answer

The shape average command in the parent policy uses an unsupported value.

Question 9

During a maintenance window, an automation script pushed a QoS policy that inadvertently changed the marking for all inbound traffic on a core interface. The change was rolled back, but performance reports show that some traffic is still being marked incorrectly. What is the most logical explanation?

Accepted Answer

The rolled back policy was applied inbound, but the outbound policy that also applies marking was not rolled back. QoS policies can be applied independently in the inbound and outbound directions on an interface. If the original automation script modified the inbound marking policy, and the rollback only reverted that inbound policy, any outbound policy that also performs marking would remain unchanged and continue to incorrectly mark traffic. This explains why some traffic still shows incorrect marking after the rollback.

Answer

The automation script used RESTCONF which requires a commit to finalize

Answer

The device requires a reload to clear the old marking

Answer

The rollback script only applied to the outbound direction

Question 10

A service provider uses a centralized automation system to manage QoS policies via NETCONF and YANG. When attempting to push a new policy-map, the device returns an error indicating that the policy-map type is not supported in the specified location. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The policy-map is being applied to an interface that does not support hierarchical QoS. The error indicates that the policy-map type is not supported in the specified location. This typically occurs when a policy-map is applied to an interface that does not support hierarchical QoS (HQoS), such as a physical interface that requires a service-policy under a parent policy-map. The NETCONF/YANG operation succeeds in syntax but fails due to device-level capability constraints.

Answer

The YANG module for QoS is not installed on the device

Answer

The NETCONF session is not authenticated

Answer

The automation system is using the wrong namespace

Question 11

A service provider is deploying MPLS L3VPN and wants to ensure that routes from a specific customer VRF are only advertised to a specific remote PE. Which mechanism should be used?

Accepted Answer

Applying a route-map to the VRF export statement. A route-map applied to the VRF export statement allows granular control over which routes are advertised to specific BGP VPNv4 neighbors. By matching on route targets or other attributes, the route-map can filter outbound routes per neighbor, ensuring that routes from a specific customer VRF are only sent to a designated remote PE.

Answer

Configuring a separate VPNv4 address-family for that PE

Answer

Using a unique route-distinguisher per VRF

Answer

Setting the next-hop-self on the PE

Question 12

An engineer is designing an MPLS L3VPN solution and must ensure that the provider edge (PE) routers can handle routing updates for multiple customers without interfering with each other. Which mechanism should be used on the PE routers?

Accepted Answer

VRF-Lite. VRF-Lite (Virtual Routing and Forwarding) is the correct mechanism because it allows a single PE router to maintain multiple separate routing tables (VRFs), each dedicated to a different customer. This ensures that routing updates for one customer are isolated from another, preventing interference. VRF-Lite achieves this without MPLS, using only IP forwarding and per-VRF routing instances.

Answer

Route distinguishers

Answer

Route reflectors

Answer

MPLS-TE

Question 13

A network operator wants to prefer a specific BGP route from a peer for a prefix. After applying a route-map to set local preference to 200, the route is still not preferred over a route from another peer with local preference 150. What could be the issue?

Accepted Answer

The prefix was received with a higher weight.. BGP uses multiple attributes in a specific order of precedence when selecting the best path. Weight (Cisco-proprietary) is checked first, before local preference. If the peer's route has a higher weight (e.g., 32768 for locally injected routes or a manually set value), it will be preferred over a route with a local preference of 200, even if the other route's local preference is only 150.

Answer

The neighbor address-family is not correct.

Answer

The route-map was applied on the wrong BGP neighbor direction.

Answer

The route is received via an IBGP session.

Question 14

Which THREE of the following L3VPN services require the use of a dedicated control plane per VPN instance?

Accepted Answer

6VPE. 6VPE (IPv6 VPN Provider Edge) requires a dedicated control plane per VPN instance because it uses separate per-VPN routing tables and a distinct BGP session (typically MP-BGP with the IPv6 address family) to exchange IPv6 VPN routes. This ensures that each customer's IPv6 routing information is isolated and processed independently, which is a core requirement for L3VPN services that maintain per-VPN forwarding and control plane separation.

Answer

VPLS

Answer

MDT VPN

Question 15

An SP network is implementing BGP PIC (Prefix Independent Convergence) for fast failover. What is the primary mechanism used by BGP PIC to achieve sub-second convergence?

Accepted Answer

It pre-computes and installs a backup path in the FIB for each prefix. BGP PIC uses a backup path (often a pre-computed alternate path) that is installed in the FIB along with the primary path. Upon failure of the primary path, traffic is switched to the backup path without waiting for BGP convergence.

Answer

It uses route summarization to reduce the number of prefixes

Answer

It implements BGP multipath to load balance traffic

Answer

It relies on BFD to detect failures quickly

Question 16

A network engineer is designing a Layer 2 VPN using EVPN with MPLS data plane. The customer requires all-hub multipoint connectivity with optimal multicast replication. Which EVPN route type is used to advertise multicast group membership?

Accepted Answer

Route Type 6 (Selective Multicast Ethernet Tag). Route Type 6 (Selective Multicast Ethernet Tag) is used in EVPN to advertise multicast group membership for selective multicast replication. This allows the provider edge (PE) routers to build optimal multicast trees for specific groups, enabling efficient all-hub multipoint connectivity with EVPN-MPLS data plane.

Answer

Route Type 3 (Inclusive Multicast Ethernet Tag)

Answer

Route Type 2 (MAC/IP Advertisement)

Answer

Route Type 4 (Ethernet Segment)

Question 17

In SRv6, which SID behavior is used to achieve L3VPN IPv6 VPN forwarding, where the SID points to a VPN instance and performs decapsulation and IPv6 lookup?

Accepted Answer

End.DT6. End.DT6 is the SRv6 endpoint behavior for L3VPN over IPv6, performing decapsulation and lookup in the appropriate VPN routing table.

Answer

End.X

Answer

End.DT2U

Answer

End.DT4

Question 18

A service provider is deploying Segment Routing in the MPLS core using IS-IS. Which extension is required in IS-IS to advertise the prefix-SID?

Accepted Answer

Sub-TLV 3 (Prefix-SID). In IS-IS, the Prefix-SID is advertised using Sub-TLV 3, which is carried within TLV 135 (Extended IP Reachability). This sub-TLV contains the SID value and flags, enabling Segment Routing in the MPLS core. Without Sub-TLV 3, the prefix-SID cannot be signaled, making it the required extension.

Answer

TLV 22 (Extended IS Reachability)

Answer

TLV 242 (Router Capability)

Answer

TLV 135 (Extended IP Reachability)

Question 19

A large service provider operates a national MPLS backbone with over 200 P routers and 500 PE routers. They use IS-IS as the IGP with segment routing and have deployed TI-LFA for link and node protection. Recently, a core router (P1) suffered a complete failure, and during the failure, traffic for some prefixes was dropped for over 200ms. After the failure, the network recovered within seconds. The engineer suspects that TI-LFA did not provide the expected sub-50ms protection for some destinations. Further analysis reveals that the affected prefixes have their BGP next-hop on a router that is multiple hops away, and the P1 failure impacted both the primary path and the backup path computed by TI-LFA. The engineer reviews the TI-LFA configuration and finds that 'fast-reroute per-prefix ti-lfa' is enabled under router isis. The engineer also notes that P1 was not a protecting node for those prefixes. Which action should the engineer take to improve convergence time for these prefixes?

Accepted Answer

Add the 'sr-protect' option under the fast-reroute configuration to enable node protection. For TI-LFA to provide node protection, the 'sr-protect' option should be configured, which forces the node to attempt to provide protection even for traffic that transits through the node. Option A is wrong because interface-level TI-LFA would not help; the issue is node-level. Option C is wrong because increasing IGP timers may cause slower convergence. Option D is wrong because there is no need for an additional LDP backup.

Answer

Configure TI-LFA on all interfaces using 'fast-reroute per-prefix ti-lfa interface'

Answer

Reduce the IGP timers and enable incremental SPF to accelerate convergence

Answer

Deploy LDP as a fallback label distribution protocol to provide additional backup paths

Question 20

In a service provider network, the access layer connects end customers. Which technology is commonly used for fibre-based access in GPON deployments?

Accepted Answer

GPON. GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) is a fibre-based access technology standardized by ITU-T.

Answer

DSL

Answer

MPLS

Answer

Metro Ethernet