Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA 200-301)
Demonstrate comprehensive mastery of enterprise networking foundations, IP connectivity (OSPF), IP services (NAT, DHCP, NTP), security fundamentals (ACLs, Port Security, 802.1X), and network automation with REST APIs and Python.
Official Exam Specification & Quick Facts
Question Difficulty Breakdown
Exam Guidelines & Simulation Rules
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
The CCNA 200-301 is Cisco's premier foundational networking certification validating skills across network fundamentals, network access, IP connectivity, IP services, security fundamentals, and automation.
The CCNA exam consists of 100 to 120 multiple-choice, drag-and-drop, and performance-based simulation lab questions to be completed within 120 minutes.
The passing score is approximately 825 out of 1000 points (about 82.5%). Scores are displayed immediately upon submission.
Domains include: (1) Network Fundamentals (20%), (2) Network Access (20%), (3) IP Connectivity (25%), (4) IP Services (10%), (5) Security Fundamentals (15%), and (6) Automation and Programmability (10%).
Layer 2 switches forward Ethernet frames within the same local broadcast domain using MAC addresses. Layer 3 routers forward IP packets between distinct subnets and networks using routing tables.
OSPF is a link-state interior gateway routing protocol (IGP) that uses Dijkstra's Shortest Path First (SPF) algorithm, areas (Area 0 backbone), and Link-State Advertisements (LSAs) to build dynamic routing tables.
Access ports carry traffic for a single VLAN without tagging. Trunk ports carry traffic for multiple VLANs by appending an 802.1Q VLAN header tag (containing the 12-bit VLAN ID).
NAT translates private IP addresses (RFC 1918) to public routable IP addresses. Port Address Translation (PAT / NAT Overload) maps multiple private IP addresses to a single public IP using unique source port numbers.
Standard ACLs (1-99, 1300-1999) filter traffic based solely on source IP address and should be placed near the destination. Extended ACLs (100-199, 2000-2699) filter based on source/dest IP, protocol, and port numbers, and should be placed near the source.
Port Security restricts switch port access by limiting allowed MAC addresses (static, dynamic, or sticky) and enforcing violation modes (Protect, Restrict, Shutdown) to prevent CAM table exhaustion attacks.
CCNA covers software-defined networking (Cisco DNA Center, Meraki), REST APIs (HTTP methods GET, POST, PUT, DELETE), JSON data encoding, and configuration management tools (Ansible, Puppet).
Network administrators, systems engineers, cybersecurity professionals, and cloud specialists who need a deep, practical understanding of enterprise routing, switching, and network traffic flow.