CCNP Enterprise

Engineers with a few years of production enterprise networking experience who want to prove design, deployment, assurance, security, and automation skills at a professional level. It is commonly pursued by network engineers, network consultants, and operations staff moving toward senior or design roles. It is not a first certification - the content assumes solid routing, switching, and wireless fundamentals.

Cisco does not publish these figures on its certification page, and they can change between revisions. Rather than trusting a number from a forum or an old study guide, check the current exam details on Cisco's site or in the exam registration system at the moment you schedule. Treat any figure quoted by a third party as unverified.

Cisco's certification page does not publish a fixed passing percentage. Results are reported as a scaled pass or fail rather than a simple percentage of correct answers, because different items carry different weight. Practically, this means you should aim for broad, consistent coverage of every blueprint domain rather than trying to bank a raw score target.

Fees are set by Cisco and by region, and are not reproduced here because they change. Confirm the current price on Cisco's site or in the exam scheduling system before you budget. If your employer or a training partner is paying, check whether exam vouchers or learning credits are available, since those often change the effective cost.

Yes, retakes are possible, but Cisco sets the waiting period and any repeat-attempt rules, and those terms can be revised. Check the current policy on Cisco's certification or scheduling pages before you buy a second attempt. A failed attempt also gives you a score report by domain - use it to target the weakest areas instead of re-reading everything.

Cisco uses a recertification cycle rather than awarding the credential permanently, and you can typically satisfy it through continuing education credits, related exams, or a combination of both. The current cycle length, credit requirements, and eligible activities are published on Cisco's recertification pages, so verify them there rather than relying on older material.

Cisco does not list a formal prerequisite on the certification page, but the content assumes CCNA-level fluency in switching, routing, and IP services. If you cannot confidently configure and troubleshoot VLANs, spanning tree, OSPF, and first-hop redundancy without notes, close that gap first - otherwise you will spend your professional-level study time re-learning fundamentals.

Start with Infrastructure and Architecture, because they carry the routing, switching, wireless, and design content that the other domains build on. Then take Virtualization and Security, which reuse the same campus and branch context. Finish with Network Assurance and Automation, which reward lab time and are the areas most candidates under-prepare. Do lab work per topic rather than saving it all for the end.

Three repeat offenders: over-studying routing and switching while neglecting assurance and automation; reading documentation instead of building and breaking labs; and memorizing product trivia rather than reasoning about design trade-offs and troubleshooting paths. A fourth is poor time management - if the format includes scenario-based items, practise reading a topology description quickly and extracting only the detail the question asks for.

Use them as diagnostics, not as a memory exercise. After each set, write down why every wrong option was wrong, then re-read that topic in the blueprint and lab it. Short, frequent sets mapped to a single domain beat long mixed sets early on; save full-length mixed practice for the final weeks so you can rehearse pacing and stamina under exam-like conditions.