DCNP case studies
DCNP · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The DCNP is a professional-level certification for network engineers who design, build, and operate data center fabrics rather than campus or branch networks. It suits candidates who already hold a foundational networking certification or have equivalent hands-on experience and now want to demonstrate depth in leaf-spine design, overlay networking, automation, and day-two operations. The DCNP case studies are 5 cases and about 3,140 words.
1Colo Consolidation: Spine-Leaf Under Power and Fiber Limits
A retailer is consolidating two legacy data centers into a colo suite with 18 racks across two rows. The existing design is three-tier: a pair of chassis cores running VSS, aggregation pairs with 10 Gb uplinks, and 40 top-of-rack switches; access uplinks are 4×10 Gb with 4:1 oversubscription.
687 words, about 3 min2EVPN Fabric Under ARP and BUM Pressure
A service provider runs a VXLAN EVPN fabric with four leaf pairs and two spines to support 1,500 VLANs and about 6,000 virtual machines. The underlay is OSPF with point-to-point links; the overlay uses ingress replication.
627 words, about 3 min3Stretched SDN Controller Cluster Across a High-Latency WAN
An enterprise deploys a three-node SDN controller cluster for a VMware-based private cloud with 6,000 VMs across two sites: DC-A (4,200 VMs) and DC-B (1,800 VMs). All three controller nodes sit in DC-A; the inter-site link is 300 ms RTT and has had two 20-minute outages in the last quarter.
597 words, about 3 min4PCI Microsegmentation in a Shared Data Center
A payment processor runs 40 PCI-scoped workloads in a shared data center alongside 600 non-PCI workloads. The PCI zone is currently a flat VLAN protected by a pair of perimeter firewalls with 4,000 rules; change volume is 200 requests per month and the average approval takes nine days.
617 words, about 3 min5Intermittent 10 a.m. Loss in a 400G VXLAN Fabric
A financial exchange runs a 25G/400G VXLAN fabric with 96 leaf switches and eight spines. Users report 2% packet loss and latency spikes between 10:00 and 11:00 daily, coinciding with backup and analytics jobs.
612 words, about 3 min