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CCNP Service Provider study materials
CCNP Service Provider study resources

CCNP Service Provider: Service Provider Automation and Assurance

CCNP Service Provider · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

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Service Provider Automation and Assurance

Domain 4 (30%) covers automation interfaces and assurance: NETCONF, RESTCONF, YANG, gNMI, telemetry, SNMP, IP SLA, OAM, and tooling. Expect configuration and verification questions.

Model-driven interfaces

  • YANG is a data modeling language; it defines configuration and state, not the encoding.
  • NETCONF runs over SSH (port 830) and uses XML. It supports running, candidate, and startup datastores and operations such as get-config, edit-config, commit, and discard-changes.
  • RESTCONF runs over HTTPS and uses JSON or XML with HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE).
  • gNMI uses gRPC and protobuf, commonly for telemetry and configuration.
  • IOS XR supports candidate configuration and commit replace; verify with show configuration commit list.

Telemetry and assurance

  • SNMP is pull-based polling plus push traps; polling many devices frequently is CPU-intensive.
  • Model-driven telemetry pushes subscribed sensor paths at high frequency with lower overhead; dial-out initiates from the router, dial-in from the collector.
  • NetFlow/IPFIX exports flow records; IP SLA generates active probes; syslog reports events.
  • Cisco Crosswork provides controller and assurance functions.
  • OAM includes Ethernet CFM (802.1ag), Y.1731 performance monitoring, MPLS LSP ping/traceroute, and BFD.

Automation tooling

  • EEM uses event-plus-action applets; Python, TCL, and Ansible automate configuration.
  • Declarative tools aim for idempotency; imperative scripts do not.

Worked example

An operator needs interface counters every 10 seconds from 200 routers with minimal CPU. SNMP polling at that rate means 20 polls per second across the network and repeated GET processing. Model-driven telemetry dial-out lets each router push only its subscribed sensor paths to the collector over gRPC. Configure a subscription with the interface counter sensor path and collector address, then verify with show telemetry model-driven subscription. The push model scales better and gives near-real-time data.

Traps

  • Treating YANG as an encoding such as JSON.
  • Mixing up NETCONF (SSH/XML) and RESTCONF (HTTPS/JSON or XML).
  • Assuming SNMP traps are the same as telemetry.
  • Confusing EEM with streaming telemetry.
  • Using IP SLA for passive flow accounting; NetFlow is passive.
  • Assuming candidate changes apply without a commit.