Here they are – the official CCDE Written Exam topics in all their glory! So many of these topics are so near and dear to my heart that I am very excited to prep for this certification step!

15%

1.0 Business Strategy Design

1.1 Impact on network design, implementation, and optimization using various customer project management methodologies (for instance waterfall and agile)

1.2 Solutions based on business continuity and operational sustainability (for instance RPO, ROI, CAPEX/OPEX cost analysis, and risk/reward)

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25%

2.0 Control, data, management plane and operational design

2.1 End-to-end IP traffic flow in a feature-rich network

2.2 Data, control, and management plane technologies

2.3 Centralized, decentralized, or hybrid control plane

2.4 Automation/orchestration design, integration, and on-going support for networks (for instance interfacing with APIs, model-driven management, controller-based technologies, evolution to CI/CD framework)

2.5 Software-defined architecture and controller-based solution design (SD-WAN, overlay, underlay, and fabric)

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30%

3.0 Network Design

3.1 Resilient, scalable, and secure modular networks, covering both traditional and software defined architectures, considering:

3.1.a Technical constraints and requirements

3.1.b Operational constraints and requirements

3.1.c Application behavior and needs

3.1.d Business requirements

3.1.e Implementation plans

3.1.f Migration and transformation

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15%

4.0 Service Design

4.1 Resilient, scalable, and secure modular network design based on constraints (for instance technical, operational, application, and business constraints) to support applications on the IP network (for instance voice, video, backups, data center replication, IoT, and storage)

4.2 Cloud/hybrid solutions based on business-critical operations

4.2.a Regulatory compliance

4.2.b Data governance (for instance sovereignty, ownership, and locale)

4.2.c Service placement

4.2.d SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS

4.2.e Cloud connectivity (for instance direct connect, cloud on ramp, MPLS direct connect, and WAN integration)

4.2.f Security

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15%

5.0 Security Design

5.1 Network security design and integration

5.1.a Segmentation

5.1.b Network access control

5.1.c Visibility

5.1.d Policy enforcement

5.1.e CIA triad

5.1.f Regulatory compliance (if provided the regulation)