CCNP Enterprise certification issued by Cisco is of the professional level. It is designed to check your skills to complete tasks related to enterprise networking solutions. This designation is intended for candidates with 3-5 years of experience applying enterprise networking solutions to prepare them for the professional level job roles. To gain this CCNP Enterprise certification candidates have to pass two exams: a core exam and one concentration from the pool of exams available on the vendor’s website.
The core exam is coded 350-401 is known as Implementing and Operating Cisco Enterprise Network Core Technologies (ENCOR). It lasts for 2 hours and will cost you $400. The exam checks how proficient you are in working with dual stack architecture, infrastructure, virtualization, network assurance, security, and automation. This implies your skills to explain enterprise network design and Fabric Capacity planning, work with wireless deployment models, and principles of the Cisco SD-WAN solution. In addition, you should be well- conversant with VM, Virtual switching, Hypervisor type 1 and 2, IPsec and GRE tunneling, LISP and VXLAN. Your skills to troubleshoot static and dynamic 802.1q trunking protocols and EtherChannels, describe AP models & antenna types, compare routing concepts related to OSPF and EIGRP will also be checked. Besides, you should be able to differentiate Flexible NetFlow from NetFlow, NETCONF from RESTCONF, compare such orchestration tools as Puppet, Ansible, Checf, and SaltStack. To top it all, your solid skills in providing password protection, authorization using AAA, verifying wireless security features such as EAP, PSK ,and WebAuth will also be assessed.
Note, that 350-401 evaluation is a qualifying exam that leads you to earning the CCIE Enterprise certifications.
The second step to become CCNP Enterprise certified includes passing one of the 6 concentration exams. Each of them is focused on specific topics, related to wireless networks, SD-WAN solutions, automation, and network design.
The Implementing Cisco Enterprise Advanced Routing and Services evaluation, coded as 300-410 is a 90-minute exam which assesses your knowledge and competencies in applying and troubleshooting advanced routing services and technologies. The exam covers 4 topics, such as follows: Layer 3 technologies, VPN technologies, Infrastructure services, and Infrastructure security. Before taking this test you have to pay $300. The cool thing about all concentration exams is that you obtain a specialist level certification after passing any of them, and 300-410 test is no exception. In this case, you will gain the Cisco Certified Specialist - Enterprise Advanced Infrastructure Implementation designation.
Exam 300-420 or Designing Cisco Enterprise Networks earns you the Cisco Certified Specialist - Enterprise Design designation. This test spins around the following 5 topics: advanced enterprise campus networks, advanced addressing and routing solutions, network services, WAN for enterprise networks, and automation. This evaluation lasts for an hour and a half and is priced at $300.
Before enrolling in all the mentioned exams, candidates are recommended to take the official Cisco training to polish your IT skills.
The CCNP Enterprise helps you earn the annual salary of about $113,901, according to the Ziprecruiter.com website.