N10-009 Network Operations Practice Questions

Question 1

A network administrator needs to upgrade the firmware on a critical core router. The admin has downloaded the new firmware and verified its checksum. Which of the following should the admin do before proceeding with the installation?

Accepted Answer

Back up the current router configuration. Before upgrading firmware on a critical core router, backing up the current configuration ensures that if the upgrade fails or causes unexpected behavior, the original operational state can be restored quickly. This is a standard best practice in network operations to minimize downtime and avoid manual reconfiguration of complex routing protocols, ACLs, and interface settings.

Answer

Change the management IP address

Answer

Disable all physical interfaces

Answer

Remove the old firmware image

Question 2

A network administrator needs to update the firmware on a critical core switch. According to change management best practices, which step should be completed FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Test the firmware update in a lab environment. Before any change is applied to a production network device, the firmware update must first be validated in a controlled lab environment that mirrors the production configuration. This step ensures that the new firmware does not introduce compatibility issues with existing protocols (e.g., spanning-tree, VLAN configurations, or routing protocols like OSPF) and that the update process itself does not cause unexpected behavior. Skipping lab validation risks an outage that could have been prevented, making it the foundational step in change management.

Answer

Notify all users of a scheduled outage

Answer

Create a detailed rollback plan

Answer

Schedule the update during a maintenance window

Question 3

A network administrator needs to ensure high availability for a critical server that has two network interfaces connected to two different switches. Which configuration should be implemented to provide failover and load balancing at the network layer?

Accepted Answer

Link aggregation (LACP). Link Aggregation (LACP) allows multiple physical network interfaces to be combined into a single logical link, providing both failover and load balancing at Layer 2. In this scenario, the server's two NICs are connected to two different switches; LACP can be configured across the two switches (if they support Multi-chassis Link Aggregation) or the NICs can be set up in an active/standby team for failover. This satisfies the requirement for high availability and load balancing at the network layer (Layer 2/3 boundary). Virtual IP protocols like VRRP/HSRP are designed for gateway redundancy, not for server NIC failover.

Answer

Virtual IP (VRRP/HSRP)

Answer

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

Answer

Port mirroring

Question 4

A network administrator is about to implement a QoS policy on a core router. According to change management best practices, which step should the administrator perform FIRST to ensure the policy can be reverted if it causes unexpected issues?

Accepted Answer

Back up the current configuration to an external TFTP or SCP server.. Under change management best practices, the first step before implementing any critical change is to create a reliable backup of the current configuration to an external server (e.g., TFTP, SCP, FTP). This provides the most robust form of reversibility, ensuring that if the QoS policy causes unexpected issues, the administrator can restore the original configuration exactly as it was, even in scenarios like router failure, internal configuration corruption, or accidental overwrites of the startup configuration. While saving the current running configuration to startup configuration (Option A) *before* making changes can provide a rollback point via reboot, it is less resilient than an external backup and does not protect against all failure modes, making it a less comprehensive 'first step' for ensuring reversibility according to best practices.

Answer

Save the running configuration to the startup configuration.

Answer

Test the QoS policy in a lab environment.

Answer

Schedule a maintenance window and notify the help desk.

Question 5

What is the default administrative distance for OSPF routes?

Accepted Answer

110. The default administrative distance for OSPF routes on a Cisco router is 110. Administrative distance is a trustworthiness metric used to select the best route when multiple routing protocols provide a route to the same destination; a lower value is preferred. OSPF's default AD of 110 is higher than that of static routes (1) and EIGRP (90/170), but lower than RIP (120) and IS-IS (115).

Answer

90

Answer

100

Answer

120

Question 6

A network administrator is configuring a new switch and needs to ensure that log messages are sent to a remote syslog server with a severity level of 'warning' (4) or higher. Which severity level should be set as the trap level on the switch?

Accepted Answer

4 (warning). Setting the trap level to 4 (warning) on a switch ensures that syslog messages with a severity of warning (4) and higher priority (i.e., emergency, alert, critical, error, and warning) are forwarded to the remote syslog server. The severity levels are defined in RFC 5424, where lower numbers indicate higher priority, so setting the trap level to 4 includes all messages from 0 through 4.

Answer

3 (error)

Answer

5 (notice)

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7 (debug)

Question 7

A network engineer needs to update the firmware on dozens of access points located across multiple office floors. The APs are managed by a central wireless controller. Which protocol should the controller use to transfer the firmware file to each AP?

Accepted Answer

TFTP. TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol). Wireless LAN controllers (WLCs) use TFTP to push firmware images to lightweight access points (APs) because TFTP is lightweight, connectionless, and requires minimal memory and processing overhead on the AP. This makes it ideal for the simple, one-way file transfer of a firmware binary during the AP boot or upgrade process, where the AP acts as a TFTP client and the controller as the server.

Answer

FTP

Answer

HTTP

Answer

SNMP

Question 8

A network administrator needs to generate a report of all MAC addresses learned on each switch port to assist with inventory management. Which switch feature should be examined?

Accepted Answer

MAC address table. A switch maintains a MAC address table (CAM table) that dynamically records source MAC addresses and the ports on which they were learned. This is the correct source for per-port MAC address inventory. The running configuration contains static settings, not learned addresses. IP interface configuration shows Layer 3 addressing, not MAC-to-port mappings. VLAN configuration shows VLAN memberships, not learned MAC addresses.

Answer

Running configuration

Answer

IP interface configuration

Answer

VLAN configuration

Question 9

A network administrator wants to ensure that a critical file server is always reachable via a single IP address, even if the server's NIC fails. The server has a single NIC. Which technique should be used to provide high availability for this IP address?

Accepted Answer

Implement NIC teaming. NIC teaming allows multiple NICs to be combined into a single logical interface with one IP address, providing redundancy in case a NIC fails. Although the server currently has only one NIC, this is the correct technique to achieve the goal, as it can be implemented by adding a second NIC. VRRP provides router redundancy, not server NIC redundancy, so it does not solve the problem of a server NIC failure. Load balancers distribute traffic across multiple servers, and DNS round robin does not provide automatic failover.

Answer

Configure a load balancer in front of multiple servers

Answer

Use VRRP to create a virtual IP address

Answer

Use DNS round robin

Question 10

A network administrator wants to evaluate the current bandwidth utilization on a core switch to determine if an upgrade is needed. The administrator needs to understand typical usage patterns. Which of the following should the administrator perform first?

Accepted Answer

Collect performance data over a period of time.. To evaluate bandwidth utilization and determine if an upgrade is needed, the administrator must first establish a baseline of typical usage patterns. This is done by collecting performance data over a period of time (e.g., using SNMP to poll interface counters or NetFlow/sFlow to capture traffic flows) to identify peak loads, average utilization, and trends. Without this historical data, any decision to upgrade or implement QoS would be based on guesswork rather than evidence.

Answer

Implement QoS policies to prioritize traffic.

Answer

Upgrade the switch to a higher capacity model.

Answer

Enable SNMP traps for link down events.

Network Operations

N10-009 Network Operations — Key Topics

Where candidates lose marks on Network Operations