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Study Guide: CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure Exam Survival Guide
Source: https://www.fatskills.com/first-aid/chapter/ccie-enterprise-infrastructure-exam-survival-guide

CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure Exam Survival Guide

By Fatskills Exam Guides Team — the exam nerds behind 28,500+ quizzes and 2.1M practice questions across 500+ global exams.

⏱️ ~2 min read

Window: Global | Qualifying exam + 8-hr lab (design + deploy + operate + optimize)

Must-do topics

  • Core routing/switching: OSPFv2/v3, EIGRP, BGP (policy, path control), STP variants, EtherChannel, VLANs/VRF
  • SD-Access & SDA fabrics: LISP, VXLAN, Cisco DNA Center workflows (provision, policy, assurance)
  • SD-WAN: control/overlay (vBond, vSmart, vManage), policies (data/control), TLOCs, DIA/Hub-Spoke
  • Security: 802.1X, TrustSec (SGT/SGACL), ACL/NAT, IPSec, PKI basics
  • QoS & Multicast: classification/marking, queuing/shaping, PIM/IGMP
  • Automation/Programmability: NETCONF/RESTCONF, YANG/JSON, Python snippets, telemetry

Top traps (avoid)

  • BGP policy order and attribute precedence mistakes
  • SDA underlay/overlay confusion; missing anycast gateway behavior
  • SD-WAN policy directions (from-service vs to-service) misapplied
  • QoS trust boundaries mis-set at access edge
  • Forgetting idempotent automation runs and source of truth

Time split

  • Written: ~120 min, blueprint-wide; pace ~1 min/Q
  • Lab: 8 hrs → Design (3 h) + Deploy/Operate/Optimize (5 h); time-box each section

Last-48h checklist

  • Mini-labs: OSPF area types, BGP policy, HSRP/GLBP, redistribution edge cases
  • DNAC/SDA run-through: fabric roles, VLAN pooling, SGT mapping
  • SD-WAN hands-on: feature templates, policies, app-aware routing
  • QoS cheat sheet (LLQ, CBWFQ, policing vs shaping)

Quick facts

  • BGP best path: weight → local_pref → locally originated → AS_PATH → origin → MED → eBGP > iBGP → IGP metric → router-ID
  • RSTP: discarding/learning/forwarding; root chosen by lowest BID
  • VXLAN in SDA carries endpoint SGT/VRF with LISP mapping
  • NETCONF over SSH; RESTCONF over HTTP(S)

Speed tactics

  • Draw micro-topologies; annotate costs, timers, tags
  • Verify with show commands after each change; small commits
  • Prefer simplest design that meets SLAs; avoid over-policying

Day-of mini-plan

  • 20-min warm-lab: OSPF+BGP+HSRP basics
  • Lock points early in deploy tasks; leave optimization for last hour
  • Document configs and reasoning as you go

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