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200-201 Practice Question: During a change management process, a security…
During a change management process, a security administrator approves a firewall rule change. After implementation, a critical application becomes unreachable. Which step in the change process was likely missed?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between a backout plan and testing in a staging environment, where candidates mistakenly think thorough testing eliminates the need for a rollback procedure, but in production, unforeseen interactions (e.g., asymmetric routing, NAT overlap) can still cause failures.
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
✓
Backout plan development
A backout plan is a critical step in change management that defines the specific actions to revert a change if it causes issues. Without a pre-defined backout plan, the administrator has no structured method to quickly restore the firewall rule to its previous state, leading to extended downtime for the critical application. The backout plan should include the exact commands or steps to remove or disable the new rule, such as deleting an access control entry (ACE) in a Cisco ASA or NGFW.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Post-implementation documentation
Why it's wrong here
Documentation is for records, not recovery.
- ✓
Backout plan development
Why this is correct
Without a backout plan, reverting changes is delayed.
- ✗
Testing in a staging environment
Why it's wrong here
Testing helps but lack of backout plan causes outage.
- ✗
Peer review of the change
Why it's wrong here
Peer review catches errors but not preparing rollback.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 200-201 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 200-201 exam.