350-501 Automation and Quality of Service Practice Question
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?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between YANG schema validation and device capability enforcement, leading candidates to incorrectly blame namespace or module issues when the real problem is a hardware or software feature limitation.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
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 analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The YANG module for QoS is not installed on the device
Why it's wrong here
If the module were missing, the NETCONF request would fail with a different error, such as 'module not found'.
- ✗
The NETCONF session is not authenticated
Why it's wrong here
Authentication issues would prevent any NETCONF operations from proceeding.
- ✗
The automation system is using the wrong namespace
Why it's wrong here
A namespace mismatch would cause an XML parsing error, not a policy-type error.
- ✓
The policy-map is being applied to an interface that does not support hierarchical QoS
Why this is correct
Some interface types, like tunnel interfaces, do not support hierarchical QoS policies; applying one results in this error.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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