Cisco CCNP Enterprise 350-401 ENCOR IP SLA and Catalyst Center Assurance Workflows Practice Test
Topic 13 covers ip sla and catalyst center assurance workflows for the Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Core certification. These original practice questions apply the verified 350-401 objectives to practical decisions and troubleshooting. Select one answer unless a fixed number is requested. For broader preparation, visit the Cisco 350-401 ENCOR Exam Dumps page. Each option includes an explanation of the relevant behavior and scenario constraints.
Question 1
Operations needs a lightweight synthetic check every 30 seconds to determine whether a remote router address is reachable and to record round-trip time. No application-port behavior is required. Which IP SLA operation best fits?
Correct Answer: D
Correct Answer
Answer D is correct because ICMP echo directly measures reachability and round-trip response for the target IP.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because an application test would introduce an irrelevant service dependency.
Answer B is incorrect because jitter is useful for delay variation/loss measurements and normally relies on an IP SLA responder; it is unnecessary for the stated simple reachability goal.
Answer C is incorrect because a trap is event-driven and does not provide the requested periodic active probe.
Answer E is incorrect because packet mirroring is observational and does not create the requested synthetic reachability probe.
Question 2
A voice team wants synthetic measurements of latency variation and packet loss between two IOS XE routers using a UDP test stream. Which operation is most appropriate?
Correct Answer: A
Correct Answer
Answer A is correct because UDP jitter is designed to measure UDP delay variation, loss and related path characteristics.
Incorrect Answers
Answer B is incorrect because BGP timers are not an IP SLA voice-quality probe.
Answer C is incorrect because ICMP RTT does not provide the same UDP jitter/loss measurement set intended for voice-like traffic.
Answer D is incorrect because a TCP handshake tests service reachability, not UDP jitter variation.
Answer E is incorrect because RSPAN copies real traffic and is not a synthetic SLA probe.
Question 3
A UDP jitter IP SLA operation sends packets to a Cisco router at the far end, but the operation repeatedly times out. Ordinary IP reachability works. The far router has no IP SLA responder configured. What should be corrected first?
Correct Answer: E
Correct Answer
Answer E is correct because the responder participates in the UDP jitter measurement exchange and is a stated prerequisite for this operation.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because gateway redundancy is unrelated to the synthetic probe responder.
Answer B is incorrect because traffic mirroring is not a replacement for the configured synthetic test.
Answer C is incorrect because Layer 2 root election does not supply an IP SLA responder.
Answer D is incorrect because the missing responder is the explicit prerequisite issue.
Question 4
A router has two WAN interfaces. The synthetic test must follow the same provider path used by applications sourced from Loopback20, but the IP SLA operation currently chooses a different source and exits another WAN. What change best aligns the probe?
Correct Answer: A
Correct Answer
Answer A is correct because source selection influences the routing/policy context and makes the probe represent the intended traffic.
Incorrect Answers
Answer B is incorrect because that is disruptive and unnecessary when the operation can explicitly select its source.
Answer C is incorrect because TTL does not select the intended source path.
Answer D is incorrect because SPAN does not apply to a logical loopback as a way to source IP SLA.
Answer E is incorrect because SNMP polling does not alter the probe source.
Question 5
An engineer fully configures `ip sla 20` but never issues an `ip sla schedule` command. `show ip sla statistics` has no completed measurements. What is missing?
Correct Answer: D
Correct Answer
Answer D is correct because defining an operation and scheduling when it runs are separate steps.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because IP SLA scheduling is independent of BGP adjacency.
Answer B is incorrect because packet mirroring is unrelated. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: IP SLA operation definition and scheduling are separate; the operation must be scheduled to execute.
Answer C is incorrect because logging verbosity does not start the operation. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: IP SLA operation definition and scheduling are separate; the operation must be scheduled to execute.
Answer E is incorrect because first-hop redundancy does not activate IP SLA. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: IP SLA operation definition and scheduling are separate; the operation must be scheduled to execute.
Question 6
An ICMP echo IP SLA has a successful latest return code and 12-ms latest RTT. Its historical statistics show 30 timeouts during the previous hour. Which statement is best?
Correct Answer: B
Correct Answer
Answer B is correct because latest state and accumulated history answer different questions.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because the latest result is one observation and does not erase historical counters.
Answer C is incorrect because RTT and timeout counts are different measurements. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Interpret the most recent IP SLA result separately from accumulated historical failures.
Answer D is incorrect because the count indicates failed operations but root cause still needs correlation.
Answer E is incorrect because intermittent paths can naturally produce both. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Interpret the most recent IP SLA result separately from accumulated historical failures.
Question 7
An IP SLA ICMP echo waits up to 1000 ms for each response. A probe receives no reply before that timeout. Which conclusion is justified?
Correct Answer: E
Correct Answer
Answer E is correct because timeout is a failure result, not a precise delay sample.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because no successful response does not establish jitter. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: A timeout is not a measured RTT equal to the timeout threshold; it indicates no qualifying response arrived in time.
Answer B is incorrect because one timeout cannot establish permanent failure. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: A timeout is not a measured RTT equal to the timeout threshold; it indicates no qualifying response arrived in time.
Answer C is incorrect because a timeout means the operation did not receive a qualifying reply within the configured window; actual one-way/round-trip delay is not known.
Answer D is incorrect because hop count cannot be inferred from a timeout alone.
Question 8
A UDP jitter operation reports average round-trip latency of 40 ms but jitter rising from 2 ms to 18 ms while average latency stays near 40 ms. What changed most directly?
Correct Answer: C
Correct Answer
Answer C is correct because jitter describes variation between packet delays rather than the average itself.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because the measurements do not establish a source-address change.
Answer B is incorrect because jitter is not the absolute per-packet latency. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Latency and jitter are distinct: jitter can worsen while average delay remains stable.
Answer D is incorrect because jitter units are delay variation, not loss percentage.
Answer E is incorrect because the stem explicitly says average remains near 40 ms.
Question 9
An IP SLA TCP-connect test is intended to verify the application listener at 10.10.10.50:8443. The engineer accidentally configures destination port 443, which is open on a reverse proxy. The test stays successful while the 8443 application is down. What is wrong?
Correct Answer: B
Correct Answer
Answer B is correct because success on 443 cannot verify a listener on 8443.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because frequency does not correct the wrong destination port.
Answer C is incorrect because service availability is port/application specific. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Synthetic service checks must target the same protocol/port as the service being validated.
Answer D is incorrect because multicast is irrelevant. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Synthetic service checks must target the same protocol/port as the service being validated.
Answer E is incorrect because TCP-connect operations can target configured TCP ports. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Synthetic service checks must target the same protocol/port as the service being validated.
Question 10
An IP SLA operation was scheduled with `life 3600` and started at 08:00. At 10:30 it shows old statistics but no new operations. Reachability to the target is good. What should be checked first?
Correct Answer: D
Correct Answer
Answer D is correct because a finite life can stop operation execution even though historical statistics remain visible.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because NetFlow is unrelated to IP SLA scheduling. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: When IP SLA statistics stop updating, verify that the operation is still scheduled and within its configured lifetime.
Answer B is incorrect because STP edge configuration is unrelated to the synthetic operation schedule.
Answer C is incorrect because the more direct explanation is that the schedule ended long before.
Answer E is incorrect because the operation can run independently of FHRP role unless the design explicitly says otherwise.
Question 11
A branch router can run one UDP jitter probe every second or every 60 seconds. The requirement is trend monitoring, and the device is already CPU-constrained. What principle should guide frequency selection?
Correct Answer: B
Correct Answer
Answer B is correct because frequency should be sufficient for the use case without unnecessary resource consumption.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because that is not inherently required. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Choose IP SLA frequency to meet detection needs while respecting network/device overhead.
Answer C is incorrect because probes consume processing/bandwidth and overly aggressive frequency may distort or burden the device.
Answer D is incorrect because frequency is configurable and should follow the requirement/platform constraints.
Answer E is incorrect because that is not a sensible general monitoring rule.
Question 12
An IP SLA probe between two routers reports stable 20-ms RTT and zero loss all day. Users still report a web application is slow because its database backend is overloaded. Which statement is accurate?
Correct Answer: E
Correct Answer
Answer E is correct because probe scope is limited to the operation and endpoints being measured.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because gateway redundancy is not an application performance diagnostic substitute.
Answer B is incorrect because a network-layer synthetic measurement does not cover application/backend processing time.
Answer C is incorrect because backend load can affect application time regardless of subnet.
Answer D is incorrect because network jitter metrics do not measure server CPU.
Question 13
A critical IP SLA probe targets one test responder. The responder process crashes, but the production application path beyond that router remains healthy. Monitoring raises an outage. What is the correct interpretation?
Correct Answer: D
Correct Answer
Answer D is correct because synthetic tests can fail because the measurement endpoint fails.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because the stem states production remains healthy. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Measurement endpoints are part of the monitoring system and can create false network alarms when they fail independently.
Answer B is incorrect because the evidence does not localize loss and may be entirely endpoint-related.
Answer C is incorrect because the responder is a service/component and can be a measurement failure point.
Answer E is incorrect because an unvalidated probe failure should not imply all production paths are invalid.
Question 14
An IP SLA operation suddenly reports high latency. Before increasing alert thresholds, what should the engineer verify first when the probe uses a specified source interface?
Correct Answer: C
Correct Answer
Answer C is correct because a changed or impaired measurement path can alter results and must be validated before masking the symptom.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because facility choice does not determine measured path latency.
Answer B is incorrect because spanning-tree priority is not the first prerequisite for an IP-routed probe path.
Answer D is incorrect because there is no such required relationship. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Validate the measurement source/path and target before changing thresholds in response to unexpected synthetic results.
Answer E is incorrect because that is a common NetFlow export port, unrelated to IP SLA latency.
Question 15
A tracked static route is removed when `track 10` goes down. `track 10` references IP SLA 10. Which component actually decides whether the static route stays installed?
Correct Answer: B
Correct Answer
Answer B is correct because tracking provides the policy linkage between measurement state and routing action.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because the responder participates in measurement but does not control the local route configuration.
Answer C is incorrect because flow telemetry is independent of object tracking. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Separate measurement from policy: IP SLA produces observations; object tracking and routing configuration act on them.
Answer D is incorrect because IP SLA generates measurement results; the tracking/routing configuration consumes them.
Answer E is incorrect because logging does not install/remove the route. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Separate measurement from policy: IP SLA produces observations; object tracking and routing configuration act on them.
Question 16
A new Catalyst switch is reachable by management IP but does not appear in Catalyst Center Inventory. The team has not run Discovery for its range or seed. What should be done first?
Correct Answer: C
Correct Answer
Answer C is correct because Discovery scans devices and feeds successfully discovered devices into Inventory.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because gateway role does not add it to Catalyst Center.
Answer B is incorrect because packet mirroring is not the inventory onboarding workflow.
Answer D is incorrect because IP SLA is unrelated to Catalyst Center Discovery.
Answer E is incorrect because assurance analytics require the device to be onboarded/observed first.
Question 17
Fifty access switches require the same approved NTP and logging configuration, but their interface numbering varies by device. Which Catalyst Center capability best supports repeatable deployment with controlled variables?
Correct Answer: A
Correct Answer
Answer A is correct because templates centralize repeatable configuration intent while allowing variables for device-specific values.
Incorrect Answers
Answer B is incorrect because analytics detect anomalies rather than serve as a configuration template.
Answer C is incorrect because traffic mirroring is unrelated to configuration deployment. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Use Catalyst Center templates/profiles for consistent, repeatable configuration intent across managed devices.
Answer D is incorrect because that increases inconsistency and misses the stated centralized automation goal.
Answer E is incorrect because health dashboards observe state rather than deploy the intended NTP/logging configuration.
Question 18
Users at one site complain about onboarding failures. The engineer wants a Catalyst Center view that summarizes affected clients, health and related issues before opening individual device CLIs. Which workflow is most appropriate?
Correct Answer: B
Correct Answer
Answer B is correct because Assurance is intended to provide health visibility and troubleshooting context across clients/devices/sites.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because templates define/deploy configuration; they are not the primary health dashboard.
Answer C is incorrect because that is disruptive and not justified as a first step.
Answer D is incorrect because packet capture can be useful later but is not the least disruptive first centralized view.
Answer E is incorrect because that discards the available assurance workflow and may be unnecessarily broad.
Question 19
A template specifies the intended AAA server on 100 switches. Assurance shows five devices are not behaving as expected. Why should the engineer compare deployed/intended configuration with observed device state rather than assume the template guarantees compliance?
Correct Answer: E
Correct Answer
Answer E is correct because intent and actual operational state are distinct and require compliance/verification evidence.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because templates can include many configuration elements; the premise is valid.
Answer B is incorrect because monitoring/issue visibility does not imply unconditional automatic correction.
Answer C is incorrect because templates can be used for provisioning; the issue is that intent does not guarantee current operational state.
Answer D is incorrect because Catalyst Center provides inventory/configuration/assurance mechanisms beyond syslog alone.
Question 20
Catalyst Center Inventory contains a switch, but its assurance health remains unknown because the credentials/telemetry prerequisites needed for ongoing collection are incomplete. Which principle applies?
Correct Answer: E
Correct Answer
Answer E is correct because Assurance depends on data collection after discovery/inventory. This directly matches the stem’s governing point: Catalyst Center Assurance quality depends on successful telemetry/data collection, not merely an inventory record.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because packet mirroring is not a substitute for the management/assurance integration.
Answer B is incorrect because support and collection prerequisites vary and can fail.
Answer C is incorrect because the appropriate action is to correct prerequisites rather than necessarily remove the device.
Answer D is incorrect because many management/telemetry issues can prevent health data. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: Catalyst Center Assurance quality depends on successful telemetry/data collection, not merely an inventory record.
Question 21
Catalyst AI Network Analytics flags an unusual rise in DHCP onboarding time at one site relative to its learned baseline. Several other sites remain normal. What is the best use of this result?
Correct Answer: D
Correct Answer
Answer D is correct because the baseline deviation is a useful prioritization signal but still needs evidence-based diagnosis.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because AI-driven issues are intended to highlight deviations and correlated evidence.
Answer B is incorrect because masking the deviation before validating it defeats the diagnostic purpose.
Answer C is incorrect because an anomaly indicates unusual behavior, not necessarily a single established cause.
Answer E is incorrect because that action is disproportionate without localization. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: AI-driven anomalies are useful to prioritize investigation and focus evidence collection, not to skip validation.
Question 22
Assurance correlates a high authentication-failure KPI, several client events and an upstream RADIUS timeout, then suggests the RADIUS path as a likely root cause. What is the most defensible interpretation?
Correct Answer: E
Correct Answer
Answer E is correct because correlation and guided root-cause analysis improve prioritization without making every suggestion infallible.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because timeouts can result from service or reachability/path problems.
Answer B is incorrect because a disruptive change is not justified before validation.
Answer C is incorrect because correlation and machine reasoning do not eliminate the need for validation.
Answer D is incorrect because underlying events are part of the evidence and should be considered.
Question 23
A site normally has DHCP onboarding times around 500 ms. AI Network Analytics begins flagging 1.8-second times as anomalous even though a static enterprise-wide alert threshold is 2 seconds. Why can that happen?
Correct Answer: B
Correct Answer
Answer B is correct because a deviation from predicted normal behavior can be significant before a static threshold is crossed.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because baseline learning is explicitly part of anomaly detection.
Answer C is incorrect because threshold-based and AI-driven issue mechanisms can coexist. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: AI Network Analytics can detect deviations from learned network-specific baselines even when a fixed threshold has not been crossed.
Answer D is incorrect because no unit error is required to explain the baseline-based alert.
Answer E is incorrect because site/network conditions can differ, which is why deployment-specific baselines are useful.
Question 24
Catalyst Center suggests a configuration change after an AI-assisted troubleshooting workflow. The network is a regulated production environment with a change window and rollback requirements. What should the engineer do?
Correct Answer: D
Correct Answer
Answer D is correct because AI assistance does not supersede operational governance or the need to validate the proposed fix.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because monitoring can remain valuable and need not be disabled.
Answer B is incorrect because diagnostic timing does not override governance requirements. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: AI-assisted recommendations should be validated and executed under normal technical and governance controls.
Answer C is incorrect because recommendations are not universal authorization to bypass change control.
Answer E is incorrect because they can still be useful evidence/input when validated under policy.
Question 25
Telemetry from several access switches is missing during a suspected issue. AI Network Analytics shows no anomaly, but users and traditional interface counters show intermittent loss. What is the best next step?
Correct Answer: E
Correct Answer
Answer E is correct because analytics depend on collected data, so missing telemetry limits what the model can observe.
Incorrect Answers
Answer A is incorrect because that is unnecessarily disruptive and unrelated to restoring evidence collection.
Answer B is incorrect because confidence cannot substitute for absent telemetry evidence. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: When analytics telemetry is incomplete, fall back to direct/traditional verification and restore data collection before treating analytics silence as evidence.
Answer C is incorrect because missing inputs can prevent anomaly detection. It does not satisfy the stem’s governing point: When analytics telemetry is incomplete, fall back to direct/traditional verification and restore data collection before treating analytics silence as evidence.
Answer D is incorrect because traditional evidence remains important, especially when analytics inputs are incomplete.
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