350-501 cheat sheet

Exam at a glance

Domain weightings

How much of the exam each domain covers. Spend your study time in proportion — the heavier the domain, the more questions you'll see.

Key terms

Segment Routing

Segment Routing (SR) is a source-routing architecture that encodes the forwarding path as a list of segments in the packet header; segment identifiers are distributed by the IGP (SR-MPLS labels) or carried as IPv6 SIDs in SRv6, and can be programmed via BGP or PCEP. SPCOR covers SR-MPLS and SRv6 as modern transport for service provider networks.

SRv6

SRv6 is Segment Routing over IPv6, encoding segments as IPv6 addresses in an SRH so the network needs no separate MPLS control plane. SPCOR covers SRv6 alongside SR-MPLS under MPLS and Segment Routing.

MPLS

MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) forwards packets using labels rather than IP lookups, enabling traffic engineering and VPNs across a provider core. SPCOR covers MPLS and its evolution to Segment Routing.

L3VPN

L3VPN (MPLS Layer 3 VPN) is the service that uses VRFs and MP-BGP to carry isolated customer routes across a shared provider backbone. SPCOR covers L3VPN and L2VPN services in the Services domain.

VPWS

Virtual Private Wire Service (VPWS) is a point-to-point Layer 2 VPN carried over an MPLS/SR core using pseudowires. SPCOR covers VPWS and VPLS among provider L2VPN services.

EVPN

Ethernet VPN (EVPN) is a BGP-based control plane for Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services, increasingly replacing legacy L2VPN. SPCOR covers EVPN in provider service delivery.

BGP

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) exchanges routing between autonomous systems and carries VPN and label information via its multiprotocol extensions. SPCOR covers BGP as the core provider routing and VPN signaling protocol.

IS-IS

IS-IS is a link-state IGP widely used in service provider cores for its scalability and clean support of Segment Routing extensions. SPCOR covers IS-IS and OSPF as provider IGPs.

OSPF

OSPF is a link-state IGP that provider networks use for internal routing and SR label distribution. SPCOR covers OSPF alongside IS-IS in the Networking domain.

QoS

Quality of Service (QoS) in a provider network classifies and schedules traffic to honor SLAs across the core using DiffServ and MPLS EXP/traffic-class marking. SPCOR covers QoS models for provider services.

Multicast

Multicast efficiently delivers one-to-many traffic using PIM and, in providers, multicast VPN (mVPN) over the MPLS/SR core. SPCOR covers multicast among provider services.

NETCONF

NETCONF is an XML-based protocol for programmatically configuring devices using YANG data models. SPCOR covers NETCONF/RESTCONF and YANG under Automation and Assurance.

YANG

YANG is the data-modeling language that defines the structure of configuration and operational data used by NETCONF, RESTCONF, and telemetry. SPCOR covers YANG for provider network automation.

Model-Driven Telemetry

Model-Driven Telemetry (MDT) streams operational data from devices based on YANG models, replacing pull-based SNMP polling for real-time assurance. SPCOR covers MDT in the Automation and Assurance domain.

Architecture

Architecture in SPCOR covers service provider design: transport and mobility architectures, network software and virtualization (NFV), QoS architecture, and infrastructure security. It frames the platforms and models the rest of the exam builds on.