Free Cisco 300-420 Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 4

The design goal is to reduce the impact of branch and remote-office instability while using the fewest possible ABRs. In OSPF, topology changes inside an area trigger SPF calculations for routers in that area. Creating separate areas behind aggregation points contains those changes and prevents every branch link flap from affecting the entire backbone. The minimal-ABR approach is to place the area boundary at the higher aggregation layer, where fewer routers connect the new areas to area 0. In the described topology, R5 and R6 can serve as ABRs for both sets of downstream aggregation connections. That supports a new area for the R1/R2 branch connections with R5 and R6 as ABRs, and a new area for the R3/R4 remote-office connections with R5 and R6 as ABRs. Making R1, R2, R3, and R4 the ABRs increases the ABR count and spreads area-boundary functions deeper into the network. A single new area for all downstream connections would reduce isolation between different failure domains. The selected design improves stability and keeps the OSPF hierarchy clean.

Stateful NAT64 is the correct design because IPv6-only hosts must communicate with legacy IPv4 devices and only a small pool of IPv4 addresses is available for concurrent sessions. NAT64 translates IPv6 client traffic into IPv4 traffic, allowing IPv6-only endpoints to reach IPv4-only resources. A stateful implementation maintains translation state and can use a pool of IPv4 addresses for multiple IPv6 clients, which fits the requirement for up to 10 concurrent IPv6 hosts using 10 reserved IPv4 addresses. Static NAT- PT would require fixed one-to-one mappings and is less suitable for a pool-based concurrent access model. NAT66 translates between IPv6 prefixes and does not solve access to IPv4-only devices. Dynamic NAT-PT is an older transition mechanism and is not the preferred modern answer when NAT64 is available. The design should also include DNS64 when clients access IPv4-only services by name. Reference topics: IPv6 transition, stateful NAT64, DNS64, IPv6-only hosts, IPv4 legacy reachability.

The drag-and-drop mapping is based on how Cisco differentiates YANG model families used for model-driven programmability. IETF models are standards-based and are intended for broad interoperability across vendors. They are the usual choice when the design priority is a consistent baseline for multivendor configuration or operational state. OpenConfig models are also vendor-neutral, but they are developed by the OpenConfig community and often provide an operationally consistent structure for telemetry and configuration across platforms. Cisco native models are vendor-specific models that expose detailed Cisco IOS XE, IOS XR, or NX-OS features, including capabilities that may not be represented in IETF or OpenConfig models. The design choice is therefore not simply “one model is always best.” It depends on whether the requirement prioritizes portability, abstraction, or complete Cisco feature coverage. For a standards-driven multivendor design, use IETF or OpenConfig where sufficient. For Cisco-specific device features, use Cisco native models. Reference topics: YANG models, IETF models, OpenConfig, Cisco native models, NETCONF/RESTCONF programmability.

The client edge can reach the Internet through ISP1 only if downstream routers inside the client network have a usable route toward the Internet. Since ISP1 provides full Internet connectivity and ISP2 is used for direct exchange with selected third parties, the edge design should advertise a default route into the client network. This gives internal routers a simple, scalable route for all Internet destinations while preserving specific routing where necessary. Running separate VRFs for each ISP may be a valid segmentation technique, but it does not by itself tell downstream routers how to reach the Internet. AS-path prepending toward ISP2 influences inbound path preference from external networks; it does not solve internal default routing. Filtering outbound advertisements so the client advertises only its own originated routes is important to avoid becoming a transit AS, but it is not the mechanism that enables internal users to reach the Internet through ISP1. The clean design is to receive or originate a default route at the edge and advertise that default to the client routing domain. Reference topics: BGP Internet edge design, default route advertisement, transit prevention, ISP peering policy.

BGP outbound route filtering is the correct solution because the enterprise wants control over which routes it receives without waiting for a provider change cycle each time the prefix set changes. Cisco BGP prefix-based ORF allows a receiving BGP speaker to send an inbound prefix-list filter to the remote peer, which then applies that list as an outbound filter. This reduces unwanted routing updates before they cross the session and lets the enterprise update the desired prefixes locally when business requirements change. Requesting only fixed prefixes from the ISP would work initially but fails the flexibility requirement because the provider has a two-week change process. Requesting a full table and filtering inbound would provide flexibility but wastes memory and CPU on the customer router because all routes are still received before filtering. A maximum-prefix limit does not select the correct routes. ORF is therefore the scalable operational design for receiving a default route and selected prefixes with minimal provider involvement. Reference topics: BGP ORF, prefix-based filtering, inbound route control, ISP peering design, routing table scale.

The required BGP address family is L2VPN EVPN. The design calls for VXLAN over a Layer 3 IPv4 fabric while preserving Layer 2 adjacency and allowing workload mobility between sites. EVPN is the BGP control plane used with VXLAN overlays to advertise MAC reachability, IP host information, and Ethernet segment information in a scalable way. It separates the Layer 2 and Layer 3 overlay control plane from the underlay IGP, which in this case is OSPF. VPNv4 is used for MPLS Layer 3 VPN routes, not VXLAN Layer 2 adjacency. IPv4 unicast advertises ordinary IP prefixes and does not carry MAC mobility or Ethernet VPN information. L2VPN VPLS or VPWS address families are associated with MPLS-based Layer 2 VPN services and do not provide the VXLAN EVPN control-plane model required here. EVPN is therefore the correct family for VXLAN fabrics that need host mobility and scalable Layer 2 extension. Reference topics: BGP EVPN, VXLAN, L2VPN EVPN address family, MAC reachability, workload mobility.

The load balancers should be co-located in area 0 because the design is using the same /32 application address from multiple OSPF-enabled devices. This is an anycast-style design: several load balancers advertise the same host route, and the routing protocol sends clients to the topologically best available instance. In OSPF, route preference is strongly affected by route type. Intra-area routes are preferred over interarea routes, and interarea summarization can also hide useful path details. If identical anycast host routes are originated from different nonbackbone areas, hosts may not always select the closest or most resilient load balancer, and failure behavior can become inconsistent. Placing the load-balancer anycast advertisements in area 0 keeps the routing decision consistent and avoids unnecessary interarea preference complications. Configuring X, Y, and Z as different areas would make the problem worse, and placing only one load balancer in area 0 does not provide uniform resilience. Reference topics: OSPF area design, anycast host routes, intra-area preference, backbone area, application load-balancer resilience.

The main purpose of the Cisco SD-Access underlay is to provide a stable routed transport that carries the overlay efficiently between fabric nodes. Among the available choices, optimizing network traffic routing and load-balancing is closest to that function. The underlay is not the security segmentation layer; segmentation is created in the overlay through virtual networks, SGTs, and policy enforcement. The underlay also is not primarily responsible for firewall or IPS services. While LAN automation can help build the underlay, automation is a deployment method rather than the underlay design purpose. A good underlay provides IP reachability, fast convergence, consistent MTU, and resilient routing so that VXLAN-encapsulated overlay traffic can move between edge, border, intermediate, and control-plane nodes. If the underlay is unstable, the overlay will inherit packet loss, convergence problems, and poor application performance. Reference topics: Cisco SD-Access underlay, routed access, IP reachability, fabric transport, underlay resilience, overlay support. This preserves stable fabric forwarding.

The correct code snippet must use a secure HTTPS-based RESTCONF transaction with the YANG JSON media type. The requirement explicitly states that the content type is application/yang-data+json and that the connection to the network device must be secured. In Cisco IOS XE programmability, RESTCONF uses HTTP methods against YANG-modeled resources, and secure deployments use HTTPS rather than clear-text HTTP. A loopback interface with address 172.16.15.12/32 would be configured by sending a JSON payload that follows the selected YANG model structure, commonly an IETF or Cisco native interface model, with the correct content-type and authentication headers. The key security indicator in the option must therefore be HTTPS/TLS, not an insecure HTTP URL or a non-YANG content type. NETCONF over SSH would also be secure, but the stated content-type points to RESTCONF with JSON encoding. Option A is the valid snippet because it aligns the payload format with a secure transport. Reference topics: RESTCONF, YANG JSON encoding, application/yang-data+json, HTTPS, IOS XE programmability.

Bidirectional PIM is the correct multicast protocol for this many-to-many financial application. The question states that most multicast sources also receive multicast traffic and that the design must not use source trees. Cisco describes BIDIR-PIM as a multicast mode built for many-to-many applications that use a shared tree rooted at the rendezvous point and avoid per-source shortest-path trees. This reduces multicast state because routers do not maintain separate source/group state for every active sender. PIM Sparse Mode can start with a shared tree, but it can switch to source trees, which violates the stated requirement. PIM-SSM is explicitly source-specific and requires receiver knowledge of the source, so it is not appropriate for a many-to-many model where source trees are disallowed. MSDP is not a multicast forwarding mode; it is used for source discovery between PIM-SM domains. The option text contains a spelling error, but the intended answer is BIDIR-PIM. The architect should verify RP placement, Designated Forwarder behavior, group ranges, and whether the application can tolerate shared-tree forwarding rather than shortest-path source trees. Reference topics: BIDIR-PIM, many-to-many multicast, shared tree, source-tree avoidance, multicast scaling.