For those who may not have heard, Cisco recently updated their blueprint for the CCIE Service Provider Written and Lab Exams. According to Cisco, only about 10% of the overall blueprint has changed and topics on 4.1 will be similar to those on 4.0. Read on to learn more.

Domain Changes:

4.1 domain topics are almost exactly the same as 4.0 topics. The main difference in domains is that domains 1 and 3 (service provider architecture and evolution and service provider base services) have been merged into one domain. While other domain topics did not change, slight shifts were made to domain weights.

Weighting of Domains:

Topic changes within the Domains:

• Domain 1 (Core Routing): No topics were added or removed within this domain, but some items were moved, rephrased, or merged into one single item.
• Domain 2 (Service Provider Architecture and Services) now holds tasks of the original domain 1 and 3. Other items that were part of domain 1, such as software architecture, mobility node functions, and virtualization concepts, were rephrased to better define their scope.
• Domain 3 (Access and Aggregation) had a few topics items removed.
• Domain 4 (High Availability and Fast Convergence) remains unchanged, only the weights changed.
• Domain 5 (Service Provider Security, Operations, and Management) had the most changes. In this domain, service provider operation oriented items have been removed.

The CCIE Service Provider version 4.1 exam continues to focus on dual-stack solutions for both IPv4 and IPv6 technologies, as it was already deployed in the CCIE Service Provider version 4.0 exam. All solutions, for example, routing protocols, fast convergence, and L3VPN cover both IPv4 and IPv6 technologies.

Changes to Recommended Hardware and Equipment:

No new technologies or features were added to the exam topics and therefore, the impact of this software update is minor. Candidates who want to prepare for the exam using hardware equipment are advised to use the following Cisco equipment and Cisco Software releases, which are used in the Diagnostic module.

• P, PE, and RR role: ASR 9000 Series running Cisco IOS XR 6.0 release

• PP, PE, and CE role: ASR 1000 Series running Cisco IOS XE 3.13 (15.4S) release

• PE and CE role: Cisco 7600 Series running Cisco IOS 15.4S release

• Access and Aggregation role: Cisco ME 3600x Series running Cisco IOS 15.4S release

Exam Format:

No changes were made to the exam format. The Exam Number remained the same (400-201), and still consists of three modules: Troubleshooting, Diagnostic and Configuration.

To learn more about these blueprint changes read the full Cisco Article