Three years after the release of CCNA course (Cisco Certified Network Associate) version 2 (v2), comes the refresh of the routing and switching focussed certification to version 3 (v3). With the advancement of networking technologies to include programmable network architectures, virtualisation, analytics and cloud service management, the skills and knowledge that are required from Network Engineers are becoming broader and more complicated in nature.

This has prompted Cisco to roll out the refresh of the CCNA certification, distributing these advancements in technology across the applicable exams and courses. Below we will take a look at what changes have been made and offer some insight into what you need to know.

CCNA exam numbers

The first notable change is to the exam numbers.

Changes to CCNA ICND1 and ICND2 Exams

In order to keep the exam topics current, some have been moved or removed altogether, with new topics also being added. The changes are as follows:

ICND1 Exam Changes

• OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) topics have been moved to ICND2, since the RIP (Routing Information Protocol) is used to accustom CCENT students with IP routing protocols.

Exam topics removed:

• Dual IPv4/IPv6 stack coverage has been removed because of the number of transition technologies that are now available.
• Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) has now been removed.

Exam topics added:

• Infrastructure components and impact of their interactions for Firewalls, Access Points, and Wireless Controllers.
• Collapsed Core architecture vs. three-tier architectures.
• How to configure and verify IPv6 Stateless Address Auto Configuration (SLAAC).
• Anycast has been added to IPv6 addressing types covered.
• Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) added to complement Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP).
• RIPv2 for IPv4 serves as primary focus for routing protocols.
• DNS and DHCP related connectivity issues.
• Syslog message logging for device monitoring.
• Backing up and restoring device configurations.

ICND2 Exam Changes

Exam topics removed:

• Frame Relay and Serial WAN technology coverage has been removed.
• VRRP and GLBP removed from First Hop Redundancy Protocols (only HSRP will still remain).

Exam topics added:

• Dual- vs. single-homed Intelligent WAN topology options.
• External BGP (eBGP) as used to connect Enterprise branches.
• VPN topics now include DMVPN, Site-to-Site VPN, and Client VPN technologies in common Enterprise use.
• How cloud resources are used in enterprise network architectures, including how cloud services affect network traffic paths and flows, common virtualized services and how they coexist with legacy infrastructure.
• Basics of virtual network infrastructure (NFV).
• Awareness of programmable, software-defined network (SDN) architectures, including separation of control and data planes, and how a controller functions and communicates.
• Using Path Trace application for ACLs.
• Understanding QoS concepts as they related to marking, shaping and policing mechanisms for congestion management.

What about exam 200-125 CCNA v3.0?

Exam 200-125 CCNA v3.0 still incorporates both exam 100-105 ICND1 v3.0 and 200-105 ICND2 v3.0 and, hence, the changes in the exams are applicable here too.

Older Exam Expiration

As for the older exams, both exam 200-120 CCNA v2.0 and 100-101 ICND1 v2.0 will only be available until August 20, 2016 after which they will be discontinued.

If you are currently studying for exam ICND2 v2.0, you will still have time until September 24, 2016 before it is retired.