CISCOCisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE)
The Cisco Certified Design Expert (CCDE) certification validates your expert-level skills in designing complex network solutions. This exam proves you can gather and clarify network functional requirements, design networks to meet those requirements, develop implementation plans, and convey design decisions with rationale. Earning CCDE distinguishes you as an elite designer of IT solutions, ready to lead complex network architecture and design projects.
417 practice questions · Updated 2026-07-30
5Domains
16Objectives
132Concepts
417Questions
400-007 Curriculum
Every domain, objective, and concept the 400-007 exam measures.
- Waterfall methodology fundamentals
- Agile methodology fundamentals
- Impact of Waterfall on network design
- Impact of Agile on network design
- Impact of Waterfall on network implementation
- Impact of Agile on network implementation
- Impact of Waterfall on network optimization
- Impact of Agile on network optimization
- Selecting methodology based on project context
- Integrating methodologies in hybrid approaches
- Business Continuity Planning
- Disaster Recovery Strategies
- Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
- Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
- Return on Investment (ROI) Analysis
- CAPEX vs. OPEX Analysis
- Risk Assessment and Management
- Risk/Reward Trade-off Analysis
- Cost-Benefit Analysis for Continuity Solutions
- Operational Sustainability Considerations
- Environmental sustainability principles
- Regulatory and compliance frameworks
- Energy efficiency in network design
- Lifecycle assessment
- Sustainable sourcing and materials
- E-waste management and disposal
- Carbon footprint reduction strategies
- Green metrics and reporting
- Sustainability in business strategy
- Business Needs for AI/ML
- Data Sovereignty and Placement
- Security in AI/ML Environments
- Assurance in AI/ML Operations
- Data Integrity in AI/ML
- Impacts on Storage and Traffic Patterns
- Auto Scalability for AI/ML
- Cost and ROI of AI/ML
- Governance for AI/ML
- Traffic flow analysis
- Feature interaction identification
- Path selection and forwarding
- Impact of control plane on data plane
- Management plane influence
- Operational design considerations
- Control Plane Technologies
- Data Plane Technologies
- Management Plane Technologies
- Interactions Between Planes
- Operational Design Considerations
- Centralized control plane
- Decentralized control plane
- Hybrid control plane
- Control plane placement and design considerations
- API Integration for Network Automation
- Model-Driven Management
- Controller-Based Technologies
- CI/CD Framework Evolution
- Automation and Orchestration Design
- Ongoing Support and Maintenance
- SD-WAN Architecture
- Overlay and Underlay Networks
- Controller-Based Solution Design
- Fabric Technologies
- SD-WAN Policy and Segmentation
- Integration of SD-WAN with Existing Infrastructure
- Operational Considerations for SD-WAN and Fabric
- Visibility vs. Observability
- Telemetry and Data Collection
- Network Monitoring and Analytics
- Assurance Mechanisms
- Operational Integration
- User Experience Requirements
- Application Experience Requirements
- Impact of Network Design on Experience
- Quality of Service (QoS) Mechanisms
- Application Performance Monitoring
- Performance Tuning and Optimization
- Trade-offs in Experience Design
- Technical constraints and requirements
- Operational constraints and requirements
- Application behavior and needs
- Business requirements
- Implementation plans
- Migration and transformation
- Automation goals and requirements
- AI workload characteristics
- Machine learning network design
- Large language model infrastructure
- Pattern recognition systems
- AI-specific network optimization
- AI network security and segmentation
- AI network monitoring and telemetry
- AI network scalability and resilience
- Modular network design principles
- Resilience in network design
- Scalability in network design
- Security in network design
- Technical constraints analysis
- Operational constraints analysis
- Application constraints analysis
- Business constraints analysis
- Voice application support
- Video application support
- Backup application support
- Data center replication support
- IoT application support
- Storage application support
- Regulatory compliance frameworks
- Compliance mapping to service architecture
- Data sovereignty and residency
- Data ownership and control
- Data locale and jurisdictional issues
- Service placement strategies
- IaaS design considerations
- PaaS design considerations
- SaaS integration and management
- Direct connect options
- Cloud OnRamp and MPLS integration
- WAN integration for cloud
- Cloud security architecture
- Security compliance in cloud
- AI/ML workload placement
- AI/ML infrastructure requirements
- AI/ML governance and compliance
- Segmentation
- Network Access Control
- Visibility and Observability
- Assurance
- Policy Enforcement
- CIA Triad
- Regulatory Compliance
- AI Impact on Corporate Security Policy
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Percentages reflect share of the current practice bank, not official exam weightings — no structured per-skill weight is published for 400-007, so none is invented.